Object Lesson
by Second Harrier
Summary: From an unlikely teacher, a hard lesson, and what follows from it. Now ongoing.
1. Object Lesson

Object Lesson

It was with some surprise that Katara returned to camp to find only her brother present. Well, Momo never flew far from camp, and Appa more or less _was_ camp, so they were there too. Sokka, sitting on his sleeping mat and sharpening his boomerang, was nevertheless the only other human in the small clearing. Upon hearing her approach through the leafy undergrowth, he looked up from his task. "Fill the water skins?"

Katara hefted four bulging containers off of her shoulders. "There's a little stream not far through the trees that I used. It seemed to be pretty clean, but I bent the water around a little, just in case." She'd discovered that waterbending could cleanse the impurities from water in a desperate gamble very early in their travels, when inaccuracies on their maps from home had them running out of drinking water with nothing but ocean for miles in every direction. At the time, Katara had just _barely_ been enough of a waterbender to strip the ocean water of its salt, and incompletely at that. Thinking what would have happened had they been any further off course still caused her to shudder.

"That's good," Sokka acknowledged. He turned back to his boomerang for a moment and brought the bladed edge of the weapon close to his face. Peering intently at it, he slid it into the sheath on his back with practiced speed and grace, apparently satisfied with the job he'd done.

Katara looked around again, scanning the edge of their camp in the middle of the great forest, and looking out into the endless tree trunks beyond. This was a place of elms, oaks, beeches- temperate trees, yet far lusher and greener than the hardy plants that grew on the flat, sun-baked plains of the Earth Kingdom. They were going south, and had in fact left the Earth Kingdom proper. Tonight, for the first time since their initial journey to the North Pole, they were making camp in what the Fire Nation called the 'Conquered Territories': a few provinces in the southeastern corner of the Earth Kingdom that had been controlled by the Fire Nation for over fifty years now. The trees were far more like what she'd first seen of forests on the way north, huge leafy things like the hanging camp of the Freedom Fighters-

_Jet…_ Katara was broken harshly from her surveying by the memory of the young rebel. He'd died helping their group rescue Appa, mortally wounded by the treacherous minister Long Feng just days before the fall of Ba Sing Se. She hadn't forgiven him for the extreme tactics she'd watched him use in his private war with the Fire Nation, but it didn't make his killing any more justified. Jet had… _touched_ her as well, in a way that no person, no young man before him had done.

Not to say, of course, that she hadn't been similarly touched since. "So, where's Aang?"

Sokka's face suddenly twisted into a scowl. "Training," he answered curtly, taking his boomerang out of its sheath and beginning to sharpen it again.

"Really?" Katara asked, surprised in spite of herself. She supposed Aang had to keep working toward mastery in all of the bending disciplines. Still… "Is it really a good idea for him and Toph to be earthbending in the middle of a forest?"

Sokka gave his weapon a particularly rough scrape with the whetstone, sending the faintest of sparks off the edge. His teeth were gritted tightly. "He's _not_ training _earthbending…_"

Which meant that… oh, yes. It hadn't occurred to Katara when she'd first thought of Aang training. She was still getting… used to it. Looking down at Sokka, she could tell she wasn't the only one. She was doing quite a bit better than him in that regard: her older brother was practically trembling with frustration, which she knew he took out on his weapons- hence the excessive attention paid to the boomerang. Sighing, Katara flopped onto the ground next to him.

She took a deep breath. At the very least, she could get him talking. "It's still bothering you, isn't it?"

"Yep."

Katara stifled an urge to grumble at the rough tone he'd used to answer. "It's never going to _stop_ bothering you, is it?"

"Nope."

"Sokka…"

He stopped the overzealous sharpening, realizing the pressure did the boomerang more harm than good. Flicking the weapon back into its sheath, he swiveled in his seat to face her. "Look, Katara, I know I should be trying to deal with this. I know having Spoiled Fire Brat around to teach Aang is more than we could have possibly hoped for. I keep telling myself that it puts us another step closer to defeating the Fire Nation." His face twisted up into some mixture of a growl and a pout. "But… couldn't it have been _anyone_ else?!"

Katara breathed angrily at him, her own anxieties shortening her temper. "Who? Who else?! I could lose some fingers and still count the number of firebending masters we know on one hand! Iroh is out of our reach, unless you'd like to try storming back into Ba Sing Se, and that's assuming he hasn't already been moved somewhere else. Or we could look for Jeong Jeong again, except he doesn't want to be found! It would take us weeks just to pick up his _trail_!" Katara bit back the rest of her remarks; the last thing she needed to do right now was explode at her brother. She clenched her hands into fists and pressed her knuckles hard into the soft earth. Taking a few deep breaths, she opened her closed eyes and spoke more quietly: "I don't like it either. I really don't. But we're desperate, Sokka. Aang needs to master firebending. We… we have to try to make this work."

Sokka was looking at the ground. She wondered if he was even listening, but then he wrapped a hand around her elbow and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I know," he replied softly. "And I am trying… really, Katara." He looked up, and her anger melted at the sadness in his eyes. "It's just… hard, you know? It's hard for me not to hate any of _them._"

Katara nodded silently. Sokka was old enough to have clearer memories of their mother's death; she was blessed to have only vague nightmares of screaming and swirling flames. Sokka let go of her arm and got to his feet, then bent down to pick up the water skins. Carrying them in his arms, he walked to Appa and gave a great heave, throwing all four containers up to the broad saddle of the napping sky bison. Looking up, Katara saw Toph emerging from the woods at the right edge of the clearing, her short, stocky arms laden with the evening's firewood. _At least we don't have to carry flint with us anymore,_ Katara reflected sourly.

Sokka also clung to his foul mood. "It's just… NGGHH!!" he roared through his teeth, sitting down with a force that made Toph stop her approach. He held his scalp in his hands. "I mean, I could even take it if it had been some random firebender! Someone new, someone I hadn't already learned to be _terrified_ of!" He flung his hands back to the ground and threw back his head, staring up into the tree-framed sky. "Why did it have to be **her**?!"

-

"Breathe in."

Aang breathed in.

"Breathe out."

Aang breathed out.

"Remember, firebending comes from the breath."

Aang breathed in and drew back his fist. He breathed out, letting his breath flow not just out his mouth, but through his chest and up his arm to the fist he threw forward. He let the breath move even beyond his fist- and a burst of brilliant orange flame erupted from his closed fingers, bathing the darkening forest around him in the warm light.

"The breath is the source of heat in the body. The lungs are closest to the stomach, the source of energy, so they receive the most energy the fastest. This is why firebending has the greatest raw power of all the bending arts."

Aang breathed in and then out. "I've seen really powerful attacks from benders of all the elements."

"True, but earthbending, waterbending, and airbending wax and wane according to the environment in which they are used. Firebending comes from within. A firebender needs nothing outside them to prop them up, and they will begin a fight with greater strength because of this self-sufficiency."

Aang wanted to point out that the air was everywhere, but he thought better of it- and then he remembered the time when Zhao had caught him and chained his arms and legs. For all its omnipresence, Air's effectiveness _was_ limited in certain places. Earth and Water could be completely kept from their respective benders. By contrast, nothing short of a total solar eclipse could stop a firebender from using their element. His teacher had a point.

"Breathe in, breathe out." Aang did so, punching with his other arm and releasing a blast of fire from this fist as well. Continuing to breathe, he pivoted on his heel and brought his right arm around in a blocking arc, a thin curve of flames splashing through the air to bring a greater danger to anyone attacking him. Firebending had little in the way of true defense; at best, it applied offensive moves in a way that discouraged an opponent from further attack. Aang brought yet another fist forward, over his forearm; the flames from his other arm were caught by the forward motion of the attack and swirled around his closed hand, joining with the newfound flames to form a focused cone of fire that blazed a considerable distance into the dusk.

His firebending sifu circled around him at a distance, watching his progression through the moves he had already learned, and deciding what he needed to hear next as he practiced. "_Continuity_ is important, as you've perhaps already surmised. While firebending is, again, the most powerful bending discipline from its outset, its results are the most transient; Fire must have something to burn for it to linger, and if no such tinder is present, your own willpower, which _began_ the blaze, must _maintain_ the blaze. Earth, Water, and Air can all rely on the world to supply them. Fire must stand alone. Breathe in, breathe out."

Aang was careful to keep himself focused as he brought his arms back around him, briefly chambering them at his sides and causing his fire to settle in the air like a pair of burning wings. Letting his arms splay from his sides, he dropped low, feet sliding through the dirt as he widened his stance. Drawing strength from his breathing- always from his breathing, just the way he was taught- he swept his toe around in front of him, creating a line of fire that drew in the other flames he'd produced. Then he rose and moved with his foot, dragging the now impressive torrent of flames around his body with him. He rose, and the swirling fire spiraled upward lazily. He shifted forward with his entire body, pressing the fire forward even as it began to fall back down. Then he twisted to the left, pulling the flames. It was surprisingly like airbending.

"More control," his master said, putting one foot around the other, stepping sideways, reviewing his movements from every angle.

Aang had always been _wary_ of the final element on his list of mastery. Not without reason: it was the element of the nation trying to conquer the world, the element of the benders who had hunted him every day since he'd emerged into the world after a century of frozen slumber. When he'd hurt Katara… when he'd _burned_ her, the unease had turned to outright dread. He'd brought pain on the last person he'd ever wanted to hurt, the most important person in his life, with Fire. So for the longest time, he'd sworn never to firebend- ever. It would just cause others pain. Like the Fire Nation did. Like he had done.

Now that he had fire curling and blazing through his hands, however, he was excited, and he remembered how it had _always_ been exciting, deep down, on some level he couldn't verbalize. Perhaps it was because his most immediate previous incarnation had been a firebender; since starting his training, he'd felt his wrists and ankles itching to move in ways that must have come from Roku. It might, though, have been the very thing Jeong Jeong had told him as a warning: Fire was _alive_, like no other element. It was warm and strong, so powerful-

"More control," his master said.

Aang was now stepping forward at a brisk pace, and each foot or arm he extended was flooded with breath and muscle to fuel the flames. Sweat began to dampen his shirt and forehead. Keeping his palms in perfect symmetry, he thrust and chopped at the air. A tower of flames rose high over his head. The forest shone with the flickering orange blaze, swirling and roaring. Aang was so _happy_, he began to smile. Learning earthbending had literally been pounding on hard stone; waterbending, though better, was still an affair of slow, heavy motion, however graceful. Compared to these firebending was so _light_! So _much_ like airbending in this way, however different they were otherwise, and it felt so good! He swept his arms around and opened them wide, sending a burst of flames out and up to join the skyward-reaching inferno-

"Control!" his master _snapped_, her voice a razor through his mind. Coming back to full awareness of his surroundings, Aang gazed up in awe at the huge flames he had summoned, _hanging_ over the forest clearing like a low cloud. He could still feel them in all their power. Something had changed, however: their power was no longer really _his_. The fire's strength was its own- and with a _snapping_ sensation in his head, so was its will, as it broke away from the guidance of his bending. Now he could not feel it at all, not as its master; he could only feel the searing heat, and a mounting terror as the ceiling of flames compressed itself, and with a tumbling roar, began to fall.

Mind sluggish, Aang tried to step back into form. He breathed in and out regularly, stretching his hands to the sky in swooping motions to bring the blaze back under control. No matter how he flailed, the fire remained obstinate, bearing down on him faster and faster, making his eyes tear with the brightness. When it was twice his own height from the forest floor, he screamed in hopeless fear, at that moment losing his balance and stumbling backwards.

Before his rump could hit the ground, swift, sharp footsteps passed right behind him. Delicate fingers took his wrist in a strong grip, long, filed nails digging into his skin. He was pulled back to his feet, and a human shape stepped in front of him, stretching its free hand up toward the crashing blaze. For a heartbeat, the flames changed from orange and gold to chilling blue. Then, the extended arm waved across his line of sight in an almost dismissive gesture- and with no sound at all, the huge fire vanished.

The rest of the forest hadn't noticed the impending fire, apparently- birds sang, crickets chirped, and frogs croaked in an entirely regular way for the next few minutes, in which he and his firebending master were silent and frozen. She seemed to be listening for something, or concentrating; Aang, for his part, was too terrified to move or speak. When she was apparently satisfied with whatever held her attention, she let her shoulders loosen slightly; they never really _fully_ loosened. Aang held back a gasp as her nails bit even harder into his wrist. Turning on her heel to face him, she pushed him away and released him in one motion, nearly making him fall again with the force. He barely kept his feet under him, and regained his balance.

"Sorry," he mumbled, rubbing his sore wrist with his other hand. He stared down at it, avoiding her gaze.

"Don't apologize," Azula snarled. "Tell me what you did wrong."

He'd been afraid of this- it was a staple of her teaching style. When he messed up, she did not immediately lecture him on it. Instead, she made him criticize himself, before adding her scorn to his own. It was not the most heartening kind of education, though it did ensure he rarely made the same mistake twice. He forced himself to look at her, knowing she would demand it of him if he did not. It was still strange to see her in the dark brown pants and black tunic, so far removed from the rich reds of the Fire Nation garb she'd chased him and his friends across the Earth Kingdom in. She still kept her hair in its topknot, though now it was held by a black band; she removed it when they had to go into towns, but only then. He had to look up into the golden eyes, brilliant and hard to read.

Before he was the Avatar, however, Aang had been a monk, and he was a monk still. He took his shame and rethought it, made it into meekness, and a readiness to learn. "I… made the fire too big?" he suggested. He suspected there was a better answer- and when Azula's lips curled into a remarkable blend of smirk and sneer, he was certain of it.

"That was your immediate error, yes," she conceded, clasping her hands behind her back. Her voice grew light and gentle, as if she were speaking to a slow child. "It was not your true mistake, however- merely a consequence of it. Why did your fire grow unwieldy?"

Aang moved slowly through the events leading to her rescue of him, trying to find where he had gone wrong. He thought he'd started off well: he'd made great improvements in his basic movements, at least to the point where Azula no longer berated his sloppiness. He tried to recall the patterns of his muscles, and how they corresponded to the fire blasting through the air. Then he remembered her voice at the moment he realized something was very wrong. "I lost control, didn't I?"

Azula gave him a sickening smile. "_Very_ good- yes, you lost control. You lost control from nearly the instant you started your more intricate movements. What's more… this has been a persistent problem." She took one step forward, into his personal space, and glared at him. "You have a tendency to let the fire _get away_ from you. This was merely the most dramatic example of it so far."

Aang blinked in surprise. Did that mean that she'd been letting him waste time for at least the past week, waiting for him to make a particularly spectacular mistake? Suddenly he was angry. "So were you just going to wait until I _burned_ myself before telling me I was wrong? Did you think getting _hurt_ would teach me a lesson you couldn't?"

"'The burned hand teaches best,' as we say in the Fire Nation," she remarked, speaking slowly and lightly. Sokka liked to call her voice 'poisoned honey,' claiming he'd read it somewhere and that it fit her way and sound of speaking better than anything he could think of on his own. To Aang, though, it wasn't exactly right. Azula spoke in a way that was darker than what he thought about honey; also stickier, but more sugary as well. It was more like… syrup. That was it- her voice was like syrup. "It wouldn't do to have the Avatar crippled before his decisive battle with the Fire Lord, however. So I wouldn't have let you get hurt; just frightened into paying more attention. Now, start over from the beginning."

Aang walked away from her, feet crunching on the leaves and moss under his light boots. _She had to mention the Fire Lord, didn't she?_ The prospect of fighting him had been frightening enough before, and in spite of clearing his Earth Chakra, thus releasing fear's crippling power over him, he still did not look forward to the fight. Now, in addition, there was the separate but very much related problem of the Fire Lord's daughter, whom he'd allowed into his company. Azula had come to them claiming that she had been cast out. When pressed, she had revealed that her father had discovered her plans to overthrow him, and that she'd had to flee the Fire Nation almost immediately after returning to it from her conquest of Ba Sing Se. It was hard to believe that anyone so young could have any plans to betray their parent and their ruler; if there could be such a person, though, it would most certainly be Azula. The first time their larger group had run across Fire Nation soldiers, they'd attacked Azula without hesitation, which at least seemed to prove she was out of her father's favor.

She did not appear to have changed much as a person, however, which made Aang uneasy. She said she wanted revenge on her father- revenge for doing the same thing to her that she'd been planning to do to him. She wanted him to be overthrown for throwing her out for trying to overthrow him. That is why she'd come to them, and why she was teaching him firebending now: according to her, only the Avatar could do what she wanted. So he would defeat Fire Lord Ozai to save the world and give Azula her revenge, and then…? The aftermath was where things got very murky. Azula had not changed much as a person- so she certainly still wanted the throne for herself. While she had been against them, she had shown great support for the idea of the Fire Nation ruling the whole world. Would anything change if Ozai were deposed and Azula enthroned?

"You may begin, Avatar," she called from her place several feet away.

Aang nodded, though inwardly he grimaced. _She never calls me by my name. Does she even know it?_ Stepping into his stance, he began to run through the basic movements, careful to keep his breathing controlled and in harmony with his limbs. Fire emerged around him and in front of him in ways he was now familiar with. Within a few minutes, he reached the end of the elementary techniques, pausing only briefly to see if Azula wanted him to stop. When he heard nothing, he forged ahead, swirling flames into a wheel around him, then cutting it into two streams that attached themselves to his wrists and whirled in the air as he moved his arms in circles and spun around on his heels-

"Stop!" his teacher called out. Her voice brooked no challenge, so Aang breathed out hard and chambered his arms, extinguishing the burning trails. Striding over to him, Azula stopped when she was by his side. "It happened right there. You lost control."

"No I didn't," Aang protested. She raised an eyebrow and looked at him sidelong, but he continued. "I just figured that if the fire was getting stronger, it might be better to let up a little…"

"_That's_ where you made your mistake then!" Azula snapped. "This whole concept of 'letting up' must be something you're pulling from airbending, or waterbending. It is _alien_ to firebending."

"But," Aang was slightly flustered, "the fire seemed to be resisting me-"

"Of course it was resisting you; that's its nature." Azula raised her left hand in front of her, and a waggle of her fingers brought blue flames snapping to life. "Fire will strain against any attempt to control it. When that happens, you cannot let up- you must press down even harder, forcing your will on the flames."

"That doesn't seem right," Aang said. "How can it be a good thing to make an element do something it doesn't want? The monks always taught us that everything has a path it's meant to follow, and that to try and divert it only winds up diverting you from your path too, which leads both of you-"

"Avatar," Azula interrupted him. Her voice had grown low and dangerous. "Are you presuming to tell me, your _master_, how to control my own element?"

"No…" Aang said- but he was struck abruptly by the urge to continue. "But I mean… are you sure that's the only way to firebend? The whole point of _bending_ is to make the elements move in harmony with your movements- not to _control_ them like some kind of machine." His frustration at his teacher, at her methods, and at the whole war began to pour into his voice, driving him to say what he'd been thinking since the start of his study with Azula. "Have you ever thought that maybe it's _that way_ of thinking about bending that got the Fire Nation on its stupid power trip in the first place?! You know what I hear when you talk about _controlling_ the fire and _forcing my will_ on the flames? I hear Zhao, rallying his men by calling Fire the superior element! I hear _you_, explaining your 'right to rule'! So okay, maybe I _am_ trying to tell you how to firebend, because maybe the way you firebend right now is messed up! Maybe the way you've been taught to firebend is the reason the whole world is suffering from the war _you_ started!"

Azula's face had been like stone until the final statement, which made her golden eyes flash as her eyebrows lowered. She had a disgusted look on her face, a chilling show of displeasure that made Aang instantly regret what he'd said. He thought it was _true_, but he didn't want to be incinerated for it; besides, Azula was _still_ his teacher, and challenging her expertise while she was trying to instruct him was, he realized, extremely disrespectful. Ashamed, he put his hands together and bowed as low as he could. "Forgive me, sifu Azula. I… spoke out of turn."

Azula's lips curled into a sneer. "Come with me!" she snapped. Turning hard on her heel, she stalked out of the open space into the gloom of the forest. Aang realized as he ran after her that she was headed for their campsite. Was she going to take her anger out on someone less vital to her revenge? Frightened for Katara and the others, he quickened his pace through the twilight.

-

Toph, to no one's surprise, was sprawled out on the ground in front of her earthen tent, black bangs fanning around her forehead as her fingers and toes wiggled through the dark earth. She was content to relax, having done her share of the camp duties that day, while Katara and Sokka prepared dinner. She was also acting as lookout: her ability to use earthbending to 'see' meant that every sound and movement through the dirt combined to make an accurate picture of her surroundings in her head. Because of this, she felt them coming first: an unfamiliar pulse ran through the regular vibrations of the forest floor, filling her mind with familiar shapes. One shape in particular she wished she was less familiar with. Opening her pale, sightless eyes, she raised her head in the general direction of the campfire. "Bitchbender incoming, guys!" she called, not caring if Azula was close enough to hear. "Twinkle Toes is hot on her heels." She put her ear back to the ground. "Oooo, she's _stompin'_. Somethin's got her pissy."

"_Great_," Sokka snarled with a roll of his eyes. "She's bad enough when she's in a _good_ mood."

"I actually think she's _worse_ when she's in a good mood," Katara hissed. The siblings nevertheless stood up, and tried to put on friendly faces as Azula stomped out of the trees into camp.

"Yo!" Toph called, raising her head again. Stopping only briefly, Azula let out a snort- which produced _just_ enough vibrations for Toph to feel the sour curve of her mouth and nose, proving that she _had_ heard the blind girl's new nickname for her. This, of course, only put Toph in a better mood. Aang's near-weightless footsteps reached her a few seconds later, and her smile grew broader when he waved at her and greeted her.

Katara, despising every movement of her muscles, stepped away from the fire pit and gave Azula a kind smile. "You're earlier than we expected- dinner's not quite ready, so if you'll _oof!_" she grunted as the firebender, never veering from her straight course, collided with the waterbender's shoulder and shoved her aside.

"Hey!" Sokka yelled. Standing up, his machete was halfway out of its sheath when his sister clamped a hand on his shoulder. "_Katara-_"

"It's okay!" she whispered, though her teeth were gritted. "Just _chill out_ and remember what I said!" Sokka glared at her like she was crazy for a few seconds, but finally loosened his tense muscles. Sighing tiredly, she was relieved as Aang stopped right beside her. The airbender could always calm her down, even with his mere presence. "So how was training today?"

Aang gazed at her reassuringly, sensing her tension. "It was-"

"Training's not over _yet_!" Azula's voice carried through the whole camp. Sokka, Katara, and Aang looked out to the unused portion of the clearing; Toph bounced to her feet, and even Appa lifted his huge head with a rumble. Just beyond Sokka's tent, farthest from the fire, Azula stood still, her face strangely pale in the growing darkness of the night. "I've decided to take another approach for today's lesson." She flicked her right arm, and something from inside her sleeve flew out into her waiting hand.

Katara gasped; it was- no, but it couldn't be. It couldn't be because it was tied securely around her neck, which she was feeling just now, except she couldn't feel anything "**MY NECKLACE!!**" she screamed, because her necklace, the only physical link she had to her mother in the whole world, was clutched in the sharp-nailed fingers of Azula's hand.

Sokka's machete came entirely out of its sheath this time, and his other hand went to his boomerang as he took two steps toward Azula. "Give it **back**!" he growled.

"In a moment; I'm using it right now."

Katara stepped forward beside Sokka, in one fluid motion slinging her waterbending skin across her shoulders. Aang, Toph, Azula, and even Sokka recognized her feet moving into bending stance. "Azula," she said with chilling calmness, "give my necklace back to me."

Azula did not move into stance, not that it mattered: she could attack from nearly any position. "The Avatar is having trouble with his firebending at the conceptual level. Finding myself unable to merely instruct him to an adequate capacity, I have elected to _demonstrate_ the principles I am trying to explain. Your necklace will serve as the example. When I'm done with it, you may have it back." She smiled sweetly at Katara, though her eyes glittered. "That is what we all want, isn't it? The Avatar _must_ master firebending."

"Use something besides Katara's necklace, then!" Sokka said. Drawing his boomerang over his head, he hunkered into a fighting stance. Azula continued to stand still, but through the ground Toph felt her tense.

Katara, her eyes softening, broke her stance. "Promise you'll give it back?" Beside her, Sokka's eyes bulged.

Azula's smile only grew wider, and smugger. Then Aang stepped to Katara's side. "Promise you'll give it back," he demanded.

Azula's face finally turned serious. "Can you learn what I'm tying to teach you?"

Aang met her stare with his own. "Yes."

"Then when you have learned, I will give the necklace back."

The airbender glanced sidelong at his friends. Katara, though clearly still worried, nodded her assent. Sokka was expectedly unhappy with this arrangement, and he gave no sign of his approval; nevertheless, he sheathed his weapons and backed away three paces. Aang turned his head back to his firebending master. "All right."

Azula nodded. "Pay attention, Avatar." She held the necklace up by one of the ends of the straps, letting it dangle from her hand. "This is a simple necklace; its construction is durable and uncomplicated." She raised her arm, and the necklace was elevated just past Aang's eye level. "Suppose I were on tall mountain range, or above a high canyon. Or," her golden eyes twinkled, "say I was at one of your Air Nomad Temples." She got no reaction from him, so she continued. "Let's say I am standing at the edge of the complex, where rock and stone meet the sky. The winds are howling around me and beneath me. I hold the necklace out and drop it. Its light weight allows the air to carry it away." She fixed him with a piercing stare. "What happens to the necklace?"

Aang was puzzled. Hadn't she just described what would happen? "The wind carries it away, like you said."

"I was inquiring about the state of the necklace, not its movement. I want to know what being carried away on the air would do to the necklace's construction- its intactness. How would the necklace be harmed or damaged?"

This clarification made Aang pause and think. Examining as many angles as he could with Azula staring so intently, he could think of only one response to the question: "It wouldn't be… nothing would happen."

He was afraid that he'd answered wrongly, for Katara's sake- but he was somewhat surprised when Azula nodded. "Very good. Now, say I am standing on a new precipice: in this case, a cliff overlooking the ocean. Below me, the water smashes against the rocks, and the waves are tall." She lowered the necklace back to her shoulder height. "Again, I hold the necklace over the edge and release it, sending it plunging into the surf. What happens to the necklace?"

He kept in mind what Azula had said before and thought. To his left, Sokka and Katara stood expectantly, their eyes alternating between Azula and himself. On his right side, Toph had wandered toward the congregation and was now standing just behind him, feet spread wide to give her earthbending senses a larger radius. Were any of them also thinking about Azula's questions, or were they just waiting for this 'lesson' to end? It wouldn't have mattered if they were thinking. This was his problem to solve, and after half a minute, he found he could only answer it the same way he'd answered the previous one. "Nothing would happen. I mean, the necklace would sink, but it would still be okay if you could dive down and get it."

"Correct," his firebending master acknowledged. "This time, let us say that I am standing at the _base_ of a high peak- at the foot of a mountain, or a short distance up its slope. In front of me, there is a massive landslide taking place. Large boulders and stones are tumbling down from above in a cloud of dust along with millions of other, smaller rocks." Azula lowered her arm again, and the necklace was now level with the middle of her stomach. "I toss the necklace into the falling mountainside. What happens to it?"

Aang had to think harder about this question. He had, of course, seen the pattern in her questions, and the answer she wanted seemed similarly predictable. He couldn't be sure about such a thing with Azula, though; besides, falling earth was quite different from howling air or even crashing water. Still… "If you're just talking about the necklace… I don't think anything would happen to it. It would probably be okay."

"Indeed it would." Azula's full lips curved into a small smile. Then her arms moved swiftly. She raised the necklace back to her shoulder level, then slightly above it. She moved her other hand just beneath the dangling strap. Aang's eyes bulged, but he was unable to cry out before Azula snapped her wrist left, then right- and blue flames erupted in her palm.

"**NO!!!**" Katara screamed, forgetting about everything as she leapt to rescue her mother's necklace from the flames.

Azula took a step back. "Restrain your waterbending master, Avatar!"

Aang grabbed Katara by her upper arm before she could move any further. She stared at him with such a terrified, betrayed look that it made him sick. He squeezed her bicep and looked her hard in the eyes. _I won't let it burn. I promise._ He wished part of his powers as the Avatar included some kind of thought projection. Still, she seemed to catch his meaning. She relaxed slightly, and straightened up from where she'd been leaning to rush forward. She was breathing very hard, though, and seemed on the verge of tears. Glancing around revealed that Sokka, thankfully, was still in the same place, though each hand was around the hilt of a weapon; Toph hadn't moved at all. Biting his lip, Aang looked back to Azula.

"Thank you. Now, suppose I were holding the necklace… well, as I am now. The necklace is suspended above an open fire." She moved her fingers ever so slightly, causing Katara's necklace to sway back and forth. Beneath it, the blue fire rustled quietly. "Let us say that I place the necklace in the fire. Not even all the way in- suppose I merely tease the end of the necklace against the top of the flames." Azula's gaze rose back to him, and her eyes seemed to be sparkling in the night. "What happens?"

The answer was obvious. So obvious, Aang realized he should have seen it long before now- long before Azula had resorted to this cruel style of teaching. Long before he'd put something so precious to Katara in danger. "The necklace would burn no matter how far into the fire you put it."

"And?"

"It would be destroyed," he said. He looked down at the ground, dejected.

"Do you see now, Avatar, why strict control is necessary in firebending?" Azula began to move her fingers as she spoke, swirling the flames in her hand. "All of the elements have a capacity for destruction. Air, Water, and Earth, however, can all show restraint. They can move and act without causing harm, and when they do destroy, it can be in a limited way." The fugitive princess narrowed her eyes. "There is no limit or restraint to Fire. Its only desire to _consume_, and everything it touches in any way will be totally destroyed. As a firebender, you must dominate the will of the flames with your own, because the fire will engulf you as eagerly as everything else. Do you understand?"

Nobody spoke or moved. Aang's eyes were fixed on Azula's feet, gray pupils churning like clouds. When he raised his head, there was a hardened resolve on his face. "I understand, sifu Azula."

Azula nodded. "Then your training is done for today." The fire still crackled in her hand.

Aang let go of Katara's arm and quickly spread his feet. Bringing his hands close together, but not touching, he rolled an invisible ball through his palms and across his chest from left to right; when he reached his right side, he flattened his hands and let the left hand slide past the right. The air came alive with his maneuver, a blast of wind whistling from empty space- _behind_ Azula. It hit her near her side, sweeping her off her feet and extinguishing the fire in her hand. She fell to the ground in a yelp as something rattled in the moving air. Breaking form, Aang stretched out a hand and snatched the necklace as it flew by him. Extending the arm all the way, he turned and offered it to Katara, who grabbed it desperately and clutched it with both hands. She was fighting back sobs.

As Sokka approached to console his sister, Aang walked forward to where Azula was sprawled on her bottom. She glared up at him, her expression furious. "What did you do **that** for?!" she snarled.

"You were going to burn it, weren't you?" he asked. He didn't sound angry, and surprisingly, he wasn't. It was a rhetorical question- a statement of fact. He held out a hand, though he knew she would knock it aside. "No restraint to Fire, right?"

They stared right into each others' eyes for an instant, molten gold against stormy gray. Then, to Aang's surprise, she reached out with her hand and grasped his own, allowing him to help her to her feet. When she stood again, she looked appraisingly at him, and her lips curved into a satisfied smile. "I'll make a firebender of you yet, Aang."

END


	2. Touches

Greetings- this would be Second Harrier writing.

After the great response "Object Lesson" got as a one-shot, I've spent some time struggling over whether or not to expand it. On the one hand, I think the original story works very well as it is, and part of me has always hated to tamper with what's already been completed. There is also the matter of commitment: if you check my profile, you'll notice that the only fanfiction I've written so far has consisted of one-shots, short stories if you will. This is because I haven't wanted to start a longer, multi-chapter story out of fear that I won't finish it for whatever reason; as a writer, there's nothing I hate more than the prospect of an unfinished work. Plus, as much as I've noticed that people enjoy my writing, I would hate to keep them waiting for weeks and months in vain.

On the other hand, I've had quite a few more ideas about what might happen to Team Avatar plus Azula in their haphazard quest to defeat the Fire Nation. In the end, my mind just couldn't leave the ideas alone, and after admitting to myself that I was still writing the story in my head, I ultimately decided that I might as well continue writing the story on paper- or at least on the computer.

So welcome to the first chapter of the rest of _Object Lesson_! I don't know how long it's going to be right now, but you can expect more than five more chapters, at least.

And a required note on continuity: as is blatantly obvious, the events of _Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book III- Fire_ have made this story an Alternate Universe (AU) Avatar tale. This is actually a relief; if Azula _had_ wound up joining the group, I would have had a harder time deciding whether or not to resume this story, and how closely I would or would not adhere to the official events in the show's canon. As it stands, I'm in completely uncharted waters here, so I have room to do my own thing. Nevertheless, I'm in the business of writing an Avatar story, not an unrelated story with Avatar characters. There will be some elements from Book 3 that show up in _Object Lesson_, and any Book 3 characters that appear won't be wildly different from their TV counterparts.

All aboard, now, and enjoy the rest of the ride.

* * *

Toph Bei Fong was listening to the earth. 

Splayed across the ground on her belly, her toes wriggled into soft, supple dirt warmed by the sun, fingers gripping deep and thick. From these four holds she pressed herself as flat to the ground as she could, even digging herself a little inwards with her earthbending. She laid her cheek against the earth, coal black hair spilt over and around her face. Her eyes were closed, though it of course made no difference whether they were open or shut; but even being blind, the young girl's eyes naturally tended closed as she tried to will herself further to the ground, trying as if she expected to take root there, to become a part of the land beneath her.

Her marvelous earthbending sense, that allowed her to know the world around her in more and further ways than she could ever have done with eyes, worked on principles of physical contact. Toph touched the earth, the earth touched everything else, so Toph knew shape, texture, and movement because she could _feel_ it against the ground. The earth wasn't just the thing touched, either; it too could touch, and because she could feel the… _shape_ of the touch, the direction and the focus of the ground as it reached out, she could meet its moves and _match_ it- and that was _earthbending._ Every earthbender could do this; they had to, otherwise they could not make the earth move. But Toph could feel the other earthbenders as they met the earth's touches. They were so often rough, crude, blunt, the moves of their bodies practically _slapping_ and_tackling_ the ground around them. The great earthbenders- she had met just a few, in the Earth Rumble, on the frontier, in Ba Sing Se- were better, they had learned to feel the earth's motions, learned how and when and where to move in kind. But they were still rough, abrasive- and how could they not be, when they were moving blind? They had to grope and grapple because they didn't see, or saw only faintly. Unable to feel every movement of their element, earthbenders and Earth met as sparring partners, in a flailing brawl or a graceful kata or something in between, their touches hard. Toph needed the earth to know her world, so she felt its ways of touching, and matched them, mirrored them, allowed the earth to make its moves and responded in turn. Other earthbenders had to shove and force the earth to move as they wanted; she moved in the ways the earth was used to, led the earth to touches that came to it easily. Toph and Earth did not wrestle with each other- they _danced._

In respect of their long friendship, the earth had told her secrets. Before she had been taught it by her private tutors, Toph had known the world was round. She was led so often into rhythms of curves and curls with her earth, and one day she had picked up a ball and realized that each circled, swooping step was part of a larger dance that came of a sphere. She knew why there were mountains and oceans, why some things rose and some things fell- she had touched and felt her way around a world of_pieces_. Huge, huge pieces of ground that shrugged and fidgeted against each other like people in a crowd; Toph felt them pull apart, to let the water into the oceans, and push together, uniting to shove toward the sky as mountains. She had mentioned this a few times to her newest friends. She wasn't sure if they had believed her; Katara didn't seem to quite get it, and neither did Aang, though Aang had walked with an extra skip for weeks afterward. Sokka had offered objections- but his voice had been encouraging, and she almost thought she felt his brain churning over the idea. And there was another secret, one she'd never told anyone, because she had no idea how to say it, and she didn't really know what it meant either. Because she'd never seen the sun, and she only knew of its rising and setting from the travel of heat across her body, and the reports of her friends. So she couldn't really understand what they meant by the sun moving- and she wasn't sure how that would affect the times, like now, when she was stretched across the ground, her bending senses opened up as wide as she could manage, and she could feel the whole round world _move._ It spun slowly around, like a top; but she also felt pressure on it that she knew came from it moving forward through… something. Her tutors had always taught her what her friends always said: that the sun moved around the world. But Toph knew the world was moving too. So did they both move around each other? Was the world moving in one direction, the sun in another? Did the sun not move at all- was it the world that did all the moving?

Her thoughts were broken as she felt new touches against the earth- someone was coming towards her. Toph wasn't worried; the steps lacked the weight of anyone older than a teenager, and at any rate, their traveling party had stopped miles from any town. They were nearing the southwestern edges of the Earth Kingdom, where the plains were flat and hard except where farming towns kept them well watered. Toph was, in fact, enjoying what might be their last stop on solid ground before they made their big push across the sea… to the Fire Nation.

The person walking towards her touched the earth, the earth touched the person back, and Toph touched the earth, so Toph also touched the person, feeling their shapes, textures, and motions, which her mind pulled together to form a distinct impression of the person- a 'picture,' though she only used the word because she'd learned it was the best way for the others to understand how her senses worked. She could distinguish familiar people from some distance away, and she slumped, blowing some hair out of her face in irritation. She'd started to grow familiar with these footsteps in themselves, as she had with Sokka's, Aang's, and Katara's footsteps. They were graceful, almost dainty, the marks of a well-trained walk and well-bred feet. But they were also the softest of _stomps_, as if the ground were a face the feet were shoving themselves in. It was such an_arrogant_ kind of footstep- so, of course, it belonged to Azula.

"Nice day, huh?" she called out as the older girl grew close, a clearer impression of her forming in Toph's mind.

Azula stopped roughly in front of her, hands clasped behind her back. She peered down at Toph, bending just a little at the waist. "I'm supposed to come get you for dinner," she began smoothly, taking a step to the left of the prone girl. "I figured it was the least I could do, especially to get the waterbender to stop griping."

"Imagine that, Sweetness driving you into the wilderness," Toph said dryly.

There was silence for a long-held beat. "So…"

"In a minute, Bitchbender, don't rush me!" The blind girl put the side of her head to the ground. Focusing her bending a little tighter, her impression of Azula grew sharper. She'd ditched the tunic and poncho, because the day was hot; she was wearing a lighter, sleeveless shirt that left her arms bare. She had her hair up in that topknot again, and her lips were bunched together, almost puckered; they were the easiest things on her face to pick out because they were so big. Toph had a sudden thought of Azula collapsing under the weight of her own lips, which made her giggle. This caused Azula to scowl a little, which just made Toph smile because Bitchbender was _so fun_ to piss off. She was like Sokka with more control but less patience.

"What… exactly… are you doing?" the firebender asked, cocking her head to the side.

"I'm talking to the dirt," the earthbender replied, lifting her head so that her chin was now pressed against the ground. "It doesn't like you very much."

"Really now," Azula spoke in the condescending tone she used when she thought someone was wasting her time. "That's _fascinating_, I'm sure, but the waterbender was giving me the evil eye as I left, and I'd rather not have to sit through another _lecture_ because she thinks that somehow my refusal to reduce myself to domestic servitude means I'm not committed to helping the Avatar-"

"He has a name, you know," Toph said sharply, rising up into a sitting position. "And so does Katara- and so do I."

"As I'm well aware-"

"Sure about that,_Azula_?" the blind girl interrupted her for the third time now, which made Azula's face twist into a grimace. Toph could feel her body tense up and her breath grow slightly uneven. It almost made her laugh again. Bitchbender had much thinner skin than she'd been expecting. All her impressions of her as an enemy had been of someone unflappable, who didn't let anything get to them. Turns out a _lot_ of things got to poor little, pretty little Princess Azula, she was just good at not letting people know it. And not letting her feelings lead her to do stupid shit. Which did at least make her better than Sokka. Though she'd never really tried to push Bitchbender over the brink as she had so many times with Snoozles… "So then, what's my name? I'd spell it out and have you read it, but, you know." She opened her flat gray (supposedly) eyes extra wide and wagged her face from side to side.

Azula grunted, and- though Toph could barely tell- rolled her eyes. "If you think I don't know the names of _everyone_ in this ridiculous troupe after spending nearly a _month_ in your company, you've got a poorer sense of judgment than I figured…" Azula paused, the muscles in her face twitching a little, "… Tuff?"

Toph sighed, hands falling into her lap as her shoulders slumped. "_Toph._"

"Yes, that's right."

"That's not what you said."

"It is so. You must have misheard."

"I'm pretty sure I didn't."

"Well, you're awfully confident. I just know what I said."

Toph worked her face through several expressions. She was indeed confident of what she'd heard. Azula was an excellent liar- the best Toph had met. Even her earthbending senses, which could feel the changes in a person's body as they told a lie, couldn't always peg the other girl when she was being dishonest. Still, this was… _dumb._ "Don't bullshit me, Bitchbender," she finally said. Before Azula could respond, Toph struck the ground hard with her heel. The earth rumbled in response, and Toph felt herself bumped higher up on a small slab of rock that rose up beneath her butt. Another one emerged from the earth to her right; Toph tilted her head toward it. "Come on, sit. If Katara's pissy when we get back, I'll handle it."

Though she hesitated, Azula came at length to the blind girl's right, and took the seat created for her. "If you insist. That's more generosity than I would have expected from you…" she hesitated again, dipping her head down, "Toph."

"_There_ we go!" Toph exclaimed in a voice that dripped with mocking delight. "I knew we could get it if we tried! Toph… Toph Bei Fong."

"Bei Fong?" Azula repeated, sitting forward a little. She snapped her fingers a few seconds later. "Yes, I have heard that name before."

"Really?"

"I sometimes sat in when my father convened the financial ministers," the former princess explained. "'Bei Fong' came up once or twice on the trade reports they gave."

Toph was surprised, and slightly upset; she'd never known her father's trading empire included sales in the Fire Nation. It shouldn't have been _too_ surprising, really: her family did business in all corners of the Earth Kingdom and even with the Northern Water Tribe. Still, though she'd grown unimpressed with her father's values, she'd assumed even he would put patriotism before profits. Apparently not. "Yeah, my family controls a trading business. It's got a long reach."

"And a lucrative one, from what I could glean," Azula asserted. "Most of the times I heard the name was deals over metal, heavy ore mined in the Earth Kingdom that we use for our armored units and our ships. The prices being discussed were quite impressive- the Bei Fong family must be wealthy indeed."

"Eh, we do okay."

Toph's refusal to pursue the conversation about just how ridiculously rich her family was stopped their talking for a bit. Though no longer devoting her full attention to the ground beneath her, Toph continued to probe the earth with her senses, out of both necessity and habit. Azula scanned the long, dusty horizon, moving her head slowly from right to left. Then, the fire princess changed positions: she had been sitting very straight upright, but now proceeded to unfold her arms, stretch out her legs, and lean back a little on her rock-stool. "You know, had we met under less adverse circumstances, I think we would have gotten on well."

Toph bent her head toward the voice that had said the strange thing. "You been staring at the sun lately, Bitchbender? I hear it's supposed to be bad for you."

"Scoff if you want, but we do have quite a bit in common, more than I realized, in fact. We both come from the highest heights of the social order- admittedly, your father is of the merchant class, but you were born and raised in great wealth."

"And kissed it goodbye the first chance I got!" the blind girl declared with a note of pride. "Look, princess, I'm not sure if Katara's given you the whole weepy spiel yet, but my home life _blew_. My parents treated me like a fucking glass doll! I was never allowed to leave the grounds of our house, they treated me like a baby even after turning _ten_, and when they had their fucking house parties I had to sit in my goddamn room while they pretended I didn't exist!" Toph crossed her arms angrily.

"Well, that's another way we're alike, isn't it?" Azula replied, a bit surprised at the passion in the other girl's retort. "I spent three months chasing my brother and the Avatar across the Earth Kingdom with no company but two girls very close to my own age. Not exactly a spoiled, useless princess, eh?"

Toph crossed her arms a little more tightly. "Hmph! I guess. At least you're tough enough to not slow us down."

Azula gave a small, tight-lipped smirk. "Coming from you, I suppose that's a compliment." She put her arms all the way behind her back and rested her hands on the rear of her stool. "And speaking of tough, that's another way we match up: we're both bending prodigies. As someone who got to see elite Earth Kingdom troops up close, and was intimately involved in the business of the Dai Li," here her smile got a little wider, "I can honestly say I've never seen a better earthbender."

"Fucking _duh_," Toph said agreeably. "Of course I'm the best. I won the Earth Rumble four times! _Four times!_ I'm not just _in_ the top tier, Bitchbender- I _am_ the top goddamn tier."

Azula had to smile at the girl's crass, boisterous pride. "Likewise," she remarked. Toph felt her swivel her wrist in a squashed circle, and then she heard the rustling _rush_ noise that was only made by newborn flames. "I outpaced all of my teachers by the time I was your age. They turned me over to a pair of crones who can barely move, because they're the only ones old enough to know techniques I haven't mastered yet."

"Yeah, you're supposed to be pretty good," Toph leaned back a little more. "I mean, yeah, you are pretty good," she said as Azula's head snapped towards her, "it's just hard for me to say how good since I can't see all that fire of yours. Newbie flames and expert flames are all the same to me."

Azula returned her gaze in front of her. "I suppose that's a valid point." She moved her hand around a little- she was playing with the fire, though the weightless flames didn't register in Toph's senses.

"I hear you can make blue fire. Usually people say 'red' or 'orange' to talk about fire, so I guess that's something."

"I hear you can bend metal. Most earthbenders can be easily imprisoned in metal cells, so I guess that's something too." Azula closed her open palm, extinguishing the flames. "Are you planning on teaching that skill to the Avatar?"

"Eh… I dunno," Toph replied. "Twinkle Toes isn't good enough. He's getting there, but he can't touch the Earth the right way- not yet. I'm not even sure if I _can_ teach it to someone else. Maybe if we had more time…" she smiled. "Though I don't think he'd go for it. He already whines that I'm too hard on him."

Azula raised an eyebrow. "Ha! That makes another thing we're alike at. He complains to me, too." Azula then rolled her eyes. "Of course, the waterbender pampers him so much in her lessons that it's hard to be strict with him at _all_ before he starts giving you the most pitiful expressions."

"Fortunately, yours truly here is completely immune to sob faces," Toph said, pointing to her sightless eyes with some measure of pride. "Hey, did Katara give you the 'positive reinforcement' bit yet?"

Azula's lip curled. "Yes, four days ago." She made a guttural snarling sound. "It's so absurd! I told her that she can teach her element however she wants, so long as she doesn't tell me how to teach mine. I know the Avatar stresses _unity_, but for those of us who aren't reincarnated puddles of cosmic energy," this got a laugh out of Toph, "waterbending is very different from firebending. So then you have to teach them differently too, _obviously_."

Toph rolled her head around her shoulders. "No arguments from me, Bitchbender." With a small pump of her arms, Toph popped up from her seat, her feet hitting the ground with a small puff of dust. "Come on, you've probably been gone long enough to get Sweetness twitchy. She won't be so pissed if we show up together."

Azula's eyebrow rose as she left her rock-stool. "That's… surprisingly considerate of you."

"Well, I still don't think we're long-lost twins or any of that shit you were peddling, but you're not so bad when you're not acting fucking crazy." Azula seemed to hesitate at the mixed assessment, but Toph just strolled past her, wrapping her arms around her head as she did. "Come on."

Azula hung back, her feet pressed firmly into the ground. Toph kept walking. Focusing her earthbending, the blind girl checked Azula's innards- breathing, heartbeat, swishing in her stomach- to gauge her mood. Azula _was_ incredible at keeping calm, almost emotionless, when she wanted to; when the firebender was facing down trouble, her vital signs were remarkably constant. And yet as the two got further and further apart, Toph detected some change in the girl that she couldn't precisely define. She'd felt it before, and some of the times it had happened was when she, usually with other members of their group, left Azula's company abruptly. So maybe Bitchbender didn't like being walked out on. But Toph had felt it other times when Azula was right in their midst, and there had been a number of times when she or Katara or Sokka or Aang had stormed out of the former princess' midst, and Azula's guts hadn't changed then.

Well, whatever it was, Toph figured it meant that Azula wouldn't just stand there for much longer- and she was right. Her regal footsteps touched the earth with a brisk and haughty step, bringing her up to the younger girl's left in short order. Hands poised neatly at her sides, she kept pace with Toph, and they made for the campsite.

"So, shall we come up with some reason why we're late?" Azula asked. "The waterbender-"

"Whose _name_ is…"

"… _Katara_ won't believe me if I say you didn't want to move- and offered me a seat."

"You'd almost think she didn't _like_ you," Toph said with cheery sarcasm. Azula probably glared at her, because Toph felt her head turn; like all facial expressions meant to chastise her, this was a wasted effort. "Let me handle Katara. I'm the one she wanted back." Azula said nothing to that, so Toph took it as an assent.

They were within sight of the camp- Toph had actually been able to sense what was going on there for much longer- when Toph's reality erupted in chaos. Thinking back, she had left the campsite from a different direction than she was now traveling, which might be why she had missed this before. There was surprisingly little warning, as well. Walking uninterrupted, Toph's right foot came down on firm, packed earth. Then she moved her left foot forward, and set it down… where it sank into soft, warm sand.

Undeterred at first, Toph tried to continue forward, using her hearing to supplement her earthbending senses as they became increasingly erratic. She tried to keep even with the sound of Azula's footsteps, but even as she thought she was doing okay her orientation was vanishing rapidly. This must have been a particularly deep patch of sand, and the further into it she went, the further her feet were from solid ground, and the farther and farther away the stable, predictable touches of normal earth became. In their place were the millions of wild, rapid touches she felt every time she put her foot down on the sand. When they had been trapped in the Great Desert after Appa's capture, Toph had waded through enough sand, and endured enough madness through her feet, to figure out why sand messed her up: her senses reacted to _each grain of sand_ like it was solid ground. So with millions of grains of sand under her, Toph's mind was flooded with millions of her own shape as she walked with increasingly difficulty, millions of that cactus or those shrubs, millions of Azulas at her side- millions of millions of shapes all squirming and blending and crashing together through her brain….

With a yelp, Toph caught her right foot up in her left and tipped forward, eating sand as she fell down. "RRrrrgggghh- **Fuck!**" she snarled, spitting sand from her mouth and pounding the soft stuff in frustration. "Fuck fucking fuck mother_fuck_!"

"Something wrong?" Azula's voice came from somewhere in the turbulence- her left? Maybe. Directions were hard like this.

"I fucking **hate** sand!" Azula didn't say anything for a minute. Toph was already very annoyed, and this did not help matters. "You better still be there, Bitchbender!" she snapped.

"I'm _here_," Azula said, sounding unpleasant. "What's your problem? You've been stumbling and swaying for a bit now. I thought you could _see_ with your earthbending."

"I** can**!" the earthbender snarled. "But this isn't **earth**, it's **sand**!"

"They are technically the same-"

"Fuck you!" Toph spat. "It's not **solid** earth is what I mean! Sand messes up my earthbending. It's too loose; I can't focus when I walk on it, so I can't **see**."

"Ah…" Azula breathed softly. Maybe she got it now, so maybe she would stop asking dumb questions. Toph's whole body twitched when a hand came down on her shoulder; she wasn't used to being surprised. "The sand covers a big stretch of the way back to the campsite. We're right in the middle of it now; it would take longer to get out and go around than to go the rest of the way through it." Azula moved her hand from Toph's shoulder to under Toph's arm, and with a tug, the blind girl was hoisted to her feet. "Keep a hold on me, and we'll just take it easy the rest of the way."

Toph jerked away from her, though she didn't escape Azula's grip. "Whoa, hold on- you're _helping_ me?"

"Is that so hard to fathom?"

"Yes!"

"You really shouldn't be so cynical," Azula said gently. "It's tragic in someone your age."

"I've been busting my balls in professional bending since I was eight, Bitchbender. You get cynical there."

"So I see," Azula said with a soft sigh. "Very well- I want insurance. If I help you back, you _will_ cover for me when we have to face down the waterbender for being late."

"That's more like it," Toph said with a nod. "It's a deal."

"Good," the firebender remarked. Her grip moved from Toph's armpit to Toph's upper arm, and Toph grasped the waist of Azula's pants. They started forward again, their pace even, at a moderate speed; Toph was careful to match her steps to Azula's. After a few feet, she got a handle on the other girl's rhythm, and they walked easily in time together. "Ha!" Azula suddenly gave a short, sharp laugh. "I would have expected anyone else your age to accept the kindness at face value. You're a phenomenon, Toph Bei Fong."

"I guess," Toph replied, unsure what to make of Azula complementing her in that manner. At least, she thought it was a complement. "I_am_ the greatest earthbender in the world."

"And perhaps the best earthbending teacher, as well."

Toph hadn't been expecting that. "Huh?"

"I've just noticed… I'm sure you have, too." Azula was speaking softly and sweetly now. Toph couldn't help but pay attention- when she wanted to, the princess had a very nice voice.

"You've noticed… what?" the earthbender asked.

"Well… you were a latecomer to the Avatar's traveling party, right? When I first encountered him in New Ozai, he had the waterbender and her brother with him, but not you."

Toph felt like asking her to call the city 'Omashu,' but didn't want to waste the effort. "Aang picked me up in Gaoling- couple hundred miles south of Omashu."

"I thought so. I don't remember seeing you with them until that fight in the ghost town." Azula gently readjusted her grip on Toph's arm. "I suppose that all the while, the wa- Katara was teaching him waterbending."

"Uh… I guess." Where was she going with this?

"And yet, all the times I fought him, he only ever came at me with Air, and Earth. Even when there was a plentiful water supply nearby, like in the caverns of Old Ba Sing Se, he never tried to use waterbending against me- even though it's the most logical bending art to employ against a firebender."

Toph had never heard all the details of the fight under Ba Sing Se. Katara had told her the story, but she hadn't mentioned everything. But if Katara had been _able_ to fight, it only made sense that there'd been water for her to use- her waterskin wouldn't have been enough to hold off Zuko and Azula together. And Aang hadn't used any waterbending? "Eh… he probably used some waterbending when he was fighting your brother-"

"No," Azula replied with gentle certainty. "I paid quite a bit of attention to Zuzu's fight. No water there either." She then got the kind of voice that made Toph think she was smiling- though there was no telling on the sand. "You know what I think?"

They walked a few steps in silence. "Don't keep me waiting, Bitchbender," Toph said, as coolly as she could be. Though in truth, she had become a little anxious.

"I think the Avatar uses his earthbending more because he's _better_ at it. I've seen him earthbend and waterbend now- there's no question. He's more creative, he's faster, and his movements are more assured." A brief pause- it sounded like Azula was humming to herself. "Despite a months-long head start in waterbending and time spent with the Northern Water Tribe, the Avatar is a better earthbender than he is a waterbender."

Toph was feeling a little detached; her senses had been useless for a long while now, and Azula's voice was like a massage for her exhausted mind. "You… you think so?"

"I know so," Azula said definitively. "And it's obviously because his earthbending teacher is **superior** to his waterbending teacher."

It made Toph uneasy to hear Katara put down like that. "I don't know about that…"

"Oh, come on- you know it's true! The waterbender babies him too much. You've been firm, and you demand excellence from him."

"I guess…"

"I've seen it in the way he reacts to you both, also," Azula remarked. "He goes to Katara for comfort, for sanctuary when he wants to act like a child. He _uses_ her." Azula spoke with warmer tones. "But he _respects_ you."

Something cold and clingy crawled through Toph's skull. "Of course he respects me- I _demand_ respect," she insisted. Her voice sounded so weak, though.

"And he gives it to you- immensely. Have you noticed how he looks at you?" Azula's breath hitched. "Oh- that's right, I'm sorry…"

"It's okay-"

"But- can you 'sense' facial expressions, at all? Can you ever tell what someone's face is like?"

Toph let out a sigh. "Sometimes," she replied. "People have to be close to me, though- and I usually have to work harder to pick out what's on their face."

"Hmmm," Azula hummed gently. "Well then I guess you _wouldn't_ have noticed. He never really approaches you- he's always farther away from you when I catch him looking."

The earthbender's breath caught in her throat. Looking… "Looking at… me?"

"Oh, yes," the firebender said. "And like I said, if you could see his face… He looks almost _reverent_. Fascinated."

"We…_are_ talking about _Aang_, right?"

"Is someone else in our party the Avatar of all the Elements?"

"I mean, it's just… Twinkle Toes has never come off this way-"

"Well, of course not- not around you," Azula continued. "Like I said, he's never close to you when I see him looking at you. He seems to be worried you'll think less of him; your opinion matters so _much_ to him."

Toph wasn't sure if they were going slower or not; she couldn't feel anything anymore. There was just Azula's hand on her arm, and Azula's voice in her ear. "I… I never knew that…"

"Like I said, he's careful not to let you know," the former princess continued, her voice dropping lower. "Sometimes I go to find him for firebending, and he'll be far out from the camp. When I find him, he's restless, fidgeting and pacing and practicing his earthbending- always earthbending. Sometimes, he'll be muttering to himself; the words are almost always yours." She gave that short laugh again. "I have to work harder to make him focus on those days. He's so worried about letting you down. He wants to make you _proud_."

Toph wondered why she was trembling. "Uh-huh?"

Azula squeezed Toph's upper arm more tightly. "Your opinion is more important to him than anyone's. He lives to hear your praise…" Her voice dropped to a whisper, a hiss. "He _cares_ so much about you."

It seemed to Toph that her mind was swallowed in its own noise. "… Oh."

A few minutes later, Toph's right foot sunk into the sand, and she put her left foot forward… onto firm, stable ground. Finally free of the lake of sand, Toph's mind cleared almost immediately. The earth touched everything, Toph touched the earth, and so Toph knew everything around her. She once again perceived the world as a collection of shapes and textures, clearly defined. The sand was behind her, and she could now tell that it was indeed quite deep. Azula was at her side, still holding onto her arm. Not much further ahead, Aang, Sokka, and Katara were gathered around the fire pit Toph had made; Appa's huge bulk pressed firmly into the dirt, while Momo drifted in and out of her senses as he flitted about.

"I guess you're all right now?" Azula asked, letting go of her arm. Toph nodded, unable to talk anymore. Azula patted her shoulder. "Well, that's good. Don't forget about talking to the waterbender now."

As Azula had predicted, Katara had an angry lecture prepared as soon as they arrived in camp. Toph kept her end of their deal, coming earnestly to the firebender's defense. The blind girl felt Aang's closeness through the ground. For some reason, that made her shout a little louder at Katara than she had meant to, and she was a little harsher than she had intended to be. What started as a tense exchange between the two girls became a screaming match so ferocious Sokka had to put himself between them and force them apart. Aang huddled farther back from the fire, hiding his mouth behind his knees and wondering why two of his friends were being so ugly to each other.

Lying up in Appa's saddle, Azula smiled.


	3. Multibend

At long last, here's Chapter 3 of _Object Lesson_! Be warned, it's rather long. I promise the length is well justified, however; there's some serious action in this chapter.

* * *

Hours later, the only thing everyone could agree on was that it had started as Sokka's idea.

Peering down from Appa's saddle, Katara saw blue, blue, and more blue. It was actually familiar; growing up at the South Pole, she had been accustomed to the constant presence of the ocean. To be honest, she had missed it during their long, dry journey across the plains of the Earth Kingdom. Whether it was because of her childhood near the water, because she was a waterbender, or even being from the Water Tribe, being surrounded by so much water made her feel a little more at home, even if she was hundreds of feet _above_ said water.

Not everyone shared her sentiments, of course. "We will be landing as soon as there's a place to land, right?" Azula asked, for the tenth time that hour.

"_Yes_," Aang, Sokka, and Toph all replied at once. Azula was sitting in the middle of Appa's saddle, her legs uncharacteristically drawn up to her chest. She looked tense. By way of contrast, Toph was lying sprawled on her back right next to the firebender, the wind blowing away her bangs to reveal the mischievous gleam in her pale eyes. She slammed a fist good-naturedly into Azula's side. "Shit, Bitchbender, you'd think _you_ were the earthbender the way you hate to fly."

"The flying's not the issue," Azula said sharply, sounding a little strained. "Not _just_ the flying, anyway. I do not enjoy being _suspended_ above the open ocean by nothing but a six-legged _beast_ that flies without anything apparent holding it up."

The saddle and everything in it _trembled_ as Appa growled, and Azula's eyes widened as the sky bison's massive head lifted up and twisted back. His deep gray eye, bigger than her fist, fixed itself on her for a single, long second. Then Appa turned his gaze back to the front, horns angled slightly forward. The bison had just _stared_ at her. The bison had just _stared her down_. Princess Azula had been _stared down by a flying bison_. No matter how much she ran it through her mind, she could not process it. Katara and Sokka shared a glance, both wondering how it could have been Appa, of all people/living things, who would break Azula's brain.

Being sure that his friend's turn of the head didn't mean a drastic, sudden course change, Aang twisted up from his seat on Appa's head. The rushing air swirled around him and blew him backwards, and a half-cycle of his lower legs made the air spiral, turning him around. Catching the front of the saddle with both hands, he settled down to a sitting position, his hair still fluttering in the wind. Now _that_ was _really_ weird- Aang with hair. Katara still wanted to do a double take when she saw the shifting black-gray mess on top of her friend's head. They'd all agreed that Aang should keep the hair he'd started growing while unconscious after Ba Sing Se; the less conspicuous he was by the time they landed in the Fire Nation, the better. What really kept astounding her was how fast the stuff was growing! He'd started with a light dust of fuzz, and now it was, not exactly spilling down his shoulders, but long enough to blow in a breeze.

"You know, that's not a smart way to talk about Appa, since he's the reason you're not _in_ the ocean right now," the airbender said. "You'll hurt his feelings…"

"Don't you guys like, travel on ships all the time?" Toph asked. "You're being a big wuss about a little water."

"Just because I'm used to ship travel doesn't mean I _like_ the ocean," said the former princess. "Actually, I consider traveling by ship a way of expressing my _dislike_ of all this bitter salty water. The Fire Navy asserts our mastery of all the world, even the water that should be our natural enemy. We conquer the oceans with iron and steam."

"You always manage to work talk about _conquering_ into everything," Sokka observed. "Ever noticed that?" This earned him a glare from Azula, but she made no other reply.

"Although Pretty Pretty Princess has a point- are we going to land as soon as we _see_ land?" Toph asked. "Because I'm kind of needing to _stop_ soon, if you get my drift."

Katara leaned her shoulders out over the edge of the saddle, causing her ponytail to shoot back behind her in the wind. Squinting, she peered as far ahead on the horizon as she could see, trying to pick out something solid and brown or green in the endless blue. It was a spectacular day- the sky was so clear and open that at the horizon's edge it merged with the ocean, one vast blue haze. She put a hand up over her eyes to shield them from the dazzling sunlight- "Hey!" everyone looked to her abruptly. "I think I see something!"

Immediately Sokka and Azula joined her on the left side of the saddle, the latter jostling her out of the way with a shove of shoulders. "Move!"

"Hey!" Katara snapped angrily, shoving back against the firebender.

"Would you two cut it out?" Sokka said, shoved forward by his sister's stray elbow. "Azula, do you want to land or not?!" This was accompanied by a glare from the older Water Tribe sibling, and Azula grudgingly retreated, letting Katara have the second most forward spot and taking a place behind both Water Tribe members. The three of them all stared earnestly toward the spot on the horizon where Katara thought she had seen an interruption in the blue. "I don't see anything…" Sokka remarked, leaning as far forward out of the saddle as he dared.

"It was over there, more to the…" Katara checked the sun, "southwest." She leaned out closer to her brother's line of sight, and pointed. By inclining her head, she opened her ponytail up to a crosswind that sent it snapping back inward, conveniently where Azula was trying to lean out herself.

"Bwack!" she squawked as the ponytail caught her in the face. "Move your hair!"

"Sorry!" Katara called back. She jerked away with bulging eyes as Azula tugged on her ponytail. "Ow! Cut it out, Azula!"

"Your _hair_ was in my _face_; what do you expect me to do?!" Azula pulled the ponytail sideways into the saddle, dragging Katara's head with her.

"Stop it!" Katara yelled, pulling her ponytail out of Azula's grasp. In the process, she caught Sokka with her elbow again, this time in the ribs.

"Uhn!" he grunted, bending at the waist from the sharp, surprise assault. "All right, knock it off!" He turned toward the two squabbling girls, and soon his deeper voice was a part of the argument.

While the three older members of the group bickered, the two youngest sat serenely, watching and listening. Rolling over onto her stomach, Toph crawled forward until her head bumped the front of the saddle, where she proceeded to lay on her back again. "Are we going to be hearing this all the time from now on?"

Aang sighed. "Probably." Toph had actually crawled right next to him. Hearing that he was close by, she stuck out a hand and felt his leg; feeling her way down to his thin-soled shoe, she began to knead the toe with her fingers. Aang had to stifle a burst of laughter, because he was very ticklish. "Hey! Hahahah- don't, Toph!"

"Oooo, what's the matter, Twinkle Toes?" She smiled broadly. "Are your twinkle toes… _ticklish_?" She attacked the shoe with more vigor, and Aang clutched his sides.

"AHAHAHAHAHA- wow, Toph, you caAAAHAHAHAHA!!" His butt banged against the saddle's rim as he threw himself backwards, laughing. Katara's gaze briefly flickered to the two younger benders, but a finger in her face from Azula plunged her right back into the three-way argument.

"That's what I like to hear, Twinkle Toes- you laughing," Toph said, with a little more warmth than she normally put in her voice when she talked to him. She turned her head vaguely his way, and though she couldn't see, Aang was compelled to meet her pale gray eyes. "So, _is_ there a place we can land out there?"

Turning in his seat, Aang stood part of the way up, peering out past Appa's head to gaze over the ocean. "I don't know," he said honestly. Crouching slightly lower, he snapped his right arm toward him; with the _clunk_ of light wood, his staff sprang two feet sideways into his waiting hand. "I'll go check."

The airbender stood up fully, catching the attention of the three arguers on the saddle's left side. Aang hop-skipped for some extra bounce, and then hurled himself out of the saddle on the right, yellow and orange streaking through the open air. "**Aang!**" Katara cried in fear. Scrambling to the other side of the saddle, she moved her head frantically from side to side, trying to catch a glimpse of him. She gasped as she saw him, a yellow-orange shape far below; just as she laid eyes on him, however, he was obscured by fans of orange around him as the wings of his glider-staff opened. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Did you seriously _freak out_?" Sokka asked, startling her by being right behind her in the saddle; she hadn't noticed him move over. "I mean, you know by now not to get worried when he jumps off of things, right?"

Katara huffed, turning around and leaning back against the saddle's rim. "I know. I mean, I sort of know… but still, I'd like it if he gave us some _warning_. He used to do it a little, but lately he's back to just jumping out of the blue."

"I don't see why he needs to indulge your concerns," Azula remarked snidely. She had moved back to the center of the saddle, though know she was stretching her legs out. "It's an excellent way of keeping friend and foe alike on edge. Being _unpredictable_ is a powerful asset in any situation."

"I suppose it is, if you live in a world where it's impossible to _trust_ anyone," Katara shot back.

"You mean the _real_ world?" said the firebender sweetly. "The world _you've_ been a part of since you freed the Avatar from his iceberg, little waterbender?"

Sokka hung his head. _Here we go again…_

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Katara said, her own voice so sweet it was sickening. She cupped a hand around her ear and pointed it at Azula. "I thought I just heard the daughter of the crazed tyrant of the nation trying to ruthlessly dominate the world try to tell me what the _real world_ was like. But that can't be right, because she doesn't have any _clue_ what the _real world_ is like- silly me! Tee hee!"

"You think _trust_ and all those other wholesome, homespun virtues are worth anything at the _scale_ you're playing at now?" Azula snapped. She snorted. "You're so naïve. You think things that work on the smallest level also work on the biggest? You've only seen the world as one tile on a pai sho board. I've seen the game _played_, and I will tell you that trust is only valuable when it can be taken advantage of. After all, the Earth King trusted Mai, Ty Lee, and I in Ba Sing Se," she gave Katara a ferocious smile, "and we both know how _that_ turned out."

Katara wound herself up for a truly venomous retort. Sokka wondered if he would have to intervene again. _Awwww __**shit**__, Bitchbender_, Toph thought to herself. Azula sat back and smiled, her full lips pursed, looking very much like a cat. On Appa's head, Momo snuggled a little further into the sky bison's shaggy hair.

All of the impending action was put on hold, however, when Aang's voice called out from the left. "There's an island!" Azula, Katara, and Sokka turned their heads. Aang was soaring alongside Appa, his new-grown hair swirling in the breeze. He canted his glider to the side, so that he was presenting his whole body to them. "It's kinda small, but there's plants and even some water on it!" Focusing his will and energy, he surged to level with Appa's head. "Appa, come on! This way- yip yip!"

Aang pivoted to the left and dove, soaring forward at a shallow angle of descent. Pumping his six legs, the sky bison followed, though he descended even less steeply to keep things comfortable for the humans on his back. Moving her head evenly to her right, Azula saw their destination: a small speck just off Appa's left side. As they got closer, it expanded into an island of some size. One side had a steep slope covered with grasses that crested and resolved itself into a plain of shorter grass. This sloped down on the island's other side, but far more easily, making dunes before it hit a narrow beach. In the middle of the plains there was a bowl scooped out of the ground, in the center of which was a small lake.

As they came just above the island, Momo leapt off of Appa's head and joined Aang in spiraling slowly toward the ground. Appa paused in the air above the bowl, and then began to drop slowly, rocking back and forth as he did so. Appa actually wound up landing first. Momo swirled around the sky bison once, then caught Appa's horn and swung twice around it before stopping himself and perching. Aang was last to the ground, folding his glider's wings and dropping ten feet in an instant, before stopping himself by spinning his glider over his head, then dropping the remaining two feet with much less force and landing gently.

"Finally!" Toph exclaimed, vaulting over the side of the saddle; the earth shook a little as she transferred the force of her fall through the ground. She immediately sprinted off, light yellow smock blending into the sun-bleached rock, light green sleeves pumping as she made for the tall grasses on one side of the bowl.

Sokka, half-again as tall as Toph, dropped off the side of the saddle with less fanfare and less fuss. Katara grabbed one of the straps of Appa's saddle and slid slowly down the bison's side to the ground. Azula pursued a similar route of descent, though she slid a little faster, and she let go and dropped the last two feet; she landed, as she always did, with her feet in a bending stance. Just in case. The former princess then headed for the same bushes as Toph, a grimace on her face as she thought of the depths to which she was stooping. Not that she was _unfamiliar_ with being… _outdoors_.

"You know, this island's got a lot more to it than I thought from the air," Sokka remarked, looking up around the rim of the bowel. "It's pretty far out into the ocean to have so much rock to it."

Katara looked around with him. "What do you think made it?"

"Dunno. Maybe it's an underwater volcano? That would explain this formation," he pointed all around the bowel. "It kind of looks like the mouth of a volcano. Maybe it erupted so much it pushed out of the ocean."

"Maybe an Avatar made it," Aang said, walking over to the siblings.

"The explanation to everything strange _isn't_ 'An Avatar did it,'" Sokka said. "I'm sure this island's existence is perfectly explainable by natural science."

"But Kyoshi Island's out in the middle of nowhere too, and an Avatar made that," the young Avatar pointed out.

"But we _know_ Avatar Kyoshi made Kyoshi Island because she _told us herself_," the older Water Tribe member replied, seemingly with great pains. "There's nothing _on_ this island, and it's even farther from the Earth Kingdom than Kyoshi is- and it's _still_ too far from the Fire Nation to have come from there. I'm personally going with the volcano idea, though we'd have to check underwater if we wanted to know for sure…"

Aang put his fingers around his chin, thinking. His head came up swiftly. "When Roku helped us get off the Fire Island on the Winter Solstice, he made the volcanoes there erupt. So…"

"That was totally different!" Sokka objected.

"You just said you thought this island was a volcano. Why couldn't an Avatar have been the one to make it erupt above the sea level?"

"Breaking news! Volcanoes sometimes erupt on their own!"

Aang shrugged off his desire to argue further; it wasn't what he wanted and it wouldn't come to any good. Glancing to his left, he saw Katara airing out some of the sleeping bags near the edge of the lake. Putting the last one on the ground, she glanced at the water in front of her. On a whim, she fell back into her bending stance, and her whole body swayed to a push-pull. A gentle tug set chi in time with chi- a thin stream of crystal clear water spurting up from the light blue surface. Contracting her stance a little, Katara molded the streaming string of water around her hands, as if she were knitting or tying a knot. When it was tightly knit, woven even through her fingers, she _inhaled_. A puff of steam came out of the whole of the watery rope, and it froze in place, seemingly trapping her fingers and hands together. At that moment, Katara lifted her head, and turned it. Her blue eyes captured Aang's gray eyes, and he was struck by the brilliance of her stare. Waterbending brought out a special kind of joy in Katara- she'd known about her ability since she was a little girl, but lacking any masters to teach her she had been denied the chance to tap her gift to its fullest potential. There was still something unusual and special about bending for her, something that filled her with an almost childlike sense of wonder. It was why he liked training with her so much- unlike Toph and Azula, Katara made bending seem like something to be cherished.

Then she smiled mischievously at him. "Hey Aang…" she said slowly- then quickly- "think fast!" She smushed her hands together and pushed her arms outward. The icy knot dissolved and shot forward in a thin blast of water right at him.

Aang pivoted to the side as the water surged toward him, stepping into a forward stance as he did so. His hands passed each other and opened up as the water arrived, and he passed his palms over and under the water, slowing it, and with another puff of steam it froze again, an icy spear that fell into his waiting right hand. He gripped it hard despite its great coldness, and planted it in the earth with mock-gravitas.

That was when Sokka got The Idea.

_Plenty of space… this lake's nice and full… _he took another look around. _Lots of good rock..._ "And no one around- it's perfect!"

"Huh?" Aang turned toward Sokka as he spoke; Katara did the same. Azula was within earshot of the three of them, and Toph was further away but strolling quickly.

"I just thought this would be a great place for you to train your bending," Sokka said, a glint shining in his blue eyes.

Katara nodded. "It is nice and secluded… though I'd almost prefer going to the shore- this lake probably only gets refilled by rain, and I would hate to waste this water if there are fish in it-"

"Not waterbending," Sokka corrected, sounding smug.

"Oh," his sister assented. "Well, I guess this is a great spot for earthbending-"

"Uh-uh! Not earthbending," he glanced over at Toph and Azula, who were standing neutrally next to Appa, "and not firebending, either."

All four benders looked at him either puzzled or unimpressed. "Uh, Sokka… I don't really need to _practice_ my airbending anymore," Aang said, tapping the light blue arrow on his forehead. "I'm already a master- that's what the tattoos mean, remember?"

Sokka shook his head, sighing with a smile as he put his hands on his hips. "You guys aren't seeing the bigger picture! I guess I _do_ need to spell it out." He spread his arms apart, sweeping them across his four fellow travelers. "I'm saying this would be a great spot for Aang to practice _bending_. Not _just_ waterbending or earthbending or firebending or airbending- _all four!_ At once!"

"All four…" Azula repeated.

"… at once?" Toph completed the echo. Azula raised an eyebrow at the blind girl and looked slightly irritated.

"Come on," Sokka continued, "pull back from your own bending styles and think! Every time Aang has one of those spirit sessions with a previous Avatar, they all say that the _real_ power of the Avatar is the combination of all four elements in one person. Or they'll say that Aang has to use all four elements to stand a chance against the Fire Lord, which is basically the same thing. But I've gotten to thinking lately: you could just put one bender from each element in a team against the Fire Lord and it would be a lot like what Aang's been doing so far. There's got to be more _to_ the Avatar than just being a bender of all four elements. I mean, there is the Avatar State-"

"Which Miss Lightning Bolt here may have gone and busted," Toph remarked.

"Yes, _well_…" Azula muttered, rolling her eyes.

"The Avatar State hasn't been dependable so far anyway," Sokka said, breaking into the verbal sniping before it could gain momentum. "But I was giving it some serious thought, and I realized: it's not just that Aang can _bend_ all four elements- it's that he can bend them all _together_!"

"That would seem to follow logically from the Avatar being a bender of all four elements," Azula said dismissively.

"_Think_ about this, guys!" the older boy persisted. "Katara, remember when you and Aang combined your waterbending and airbending to change the shape of the clouds in that village with the fortuneteller?"

"Oh, yeah!" Katara exclaimed.

"If you get creative, there's _tons_ of stuff you can do by bending two or more elements together! You can make mudslides with Water and Earth! You could whip up a sandstorm using Earth and Air! You were talking about when Roku made the volcanoes erupt, Aang; I bet he did it by combining firebending and earthbending."

"I guess you could make steam with firebending and waterbending together," Katara added.

"Exactly!" Sokka exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "_That's_ part of Aang's power as the Avatar. He can do what it would take two or three or even four benders from the different nations working together to accomplish, or even more, since he's got such a power advantage over the average bender. You're like a crack team of multinational bending heroes… like a Bending League Unlimited!"

"Bending… League?" Aang said, a hint of whimsy in his voice. He was really thinking about it now…

"Maybe he should wear a cape," Toph said snarkily.

"_That's_ what I was thinking this would be a good place to try," Sokka went on, looking up and around the giant bowl of rock. "There's enough water in here for waterbending as long as you're not _just_ waterbending, there's a ton of rock for earthbending, and there's nothing growing or living anywhere on the bottom here, so you can firebend without worrying about something burning. And I guess you can airbend anywhere there's open space. So," Sokka puffed out his chest with pride, "I've decided that this should be the place for Aang's first multi-element training session. Instead of _one_ of you working with him on _one_ element, all _three_ of you can help Aang work on using _all_ of the elements at once!" He waited for them to begin lauding him for his brilliance.

Alas for Sokka. "I don't know," Katara softly remarked, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm not sure if Aang's advanced enough yet to start mixing our three elements together."

"Katara!" Sokka yelped, wounded by his sister's reluctance.

"For once, I agree with the waterbender," Azula chimed in, turning up her nose haughtily. "The Avatar is _not_ proficient enough at firebending yet to be _blurring_ his instruction in it with the other bending arts he's been taught."

"Come on!" Sokka protested, purging the whine from his voice and turning his gaze on the former princess. "He's going to _need_ this to stand a chance against your _dad_. The sooner he starts working on it, the better off he'll be when the time comes."

Azula snorted. "Be that as it may, _I_ am his firebending sifu. It is _my_ job to instruct the Avatar in firebending, and also to judge his progress in learning that art; and in **my** opinion **as** his firebending master, **I** say he is not ready for what you propose."

"Sheesh, what crawled up _your_ ass and died?" Toph growled. Azula shot the blind girl a withering sidelong glare, but gave up the obviously futile gesture very quickly. "Anyway, I think Sokka's on to something. I want to give it a shot."

"Really?" Katara asked with a note of surprise.

Toph crossed her arms over her chest and brought her feet together, imitating the waterbender's posture. "Really. Snoozles has a point: Aang is going to have to bend multiple elements at once if the Fire Lord is as scary a motherfucker as we've all been led to believe. And anyway," Toph smirked, "I know Aang's good enough at _my_ element to bend others along with it." Azula narrowed her eyes at the blind girl, though no one noticed it.

Katara sighed. "I'm still not sure."

"Well, we haven't actually asked Aang yet," Sokka pointed out. He glanced at the airbender. "Why don't we let _him_ decide?"

All the eyes of the group turned on the young Avatar. "So how 'bout it, Twinkle Toes?" Toph said, her black bangs obscuring her actual gaze.

Aang passed a long look over all of them, his eyes trailing carefully past Katara, Toph, Azula, and Sokka. Then, he shrugged his narrow shoulders. "Okay, sure."

"Yes!" Toph exclaimed. Sokka raised a fist toward her, and she bumped her own fist against his- well, more like punched, which left Sokka drawing back and clutching his throbbing hand.

"Now Aang," Katara said quickly, moving close to him, "don't feel pressured to do this or anything. If you don't think you're ready-"

"But I do feel like I'm ready," Aang objected. His face went through several expressions. "Well, mostly. I don't think I could bend multiple elements in an actual fight yet… but I think I've done enough training with you guys that I could give it a try here. Just to try it out- it couldn't hurt, right?"

Katara bit her lip, glancing down and inward as she mulled over his words. Finally, she smiled softly. "I guess we could. Just to try it."

"Great!" Sokka cried. His head turned toward Azula, and he raised his eyebrows comically.

Azula rolled her eyes. "I suppose I've been outvoted," she admitted, turning her head up a little higher. "But I want everyone to remember that I was never in favor of this. I'll help, because it's going to happen anyway, and I might as well be on hand for _damage control._"

Sokka nodded. "Good enough for me."

In short order, Aang was standing slightly more than a dozen feet away from the pool of water, and he'd moved backwards from their earlier spot so that he was closer to the rock wall of the bowl. The water was to his right; the closer bit of the wall was behind him. To his left, about twenty feet away, Katara, Toph, and Azula stood, fixed on their mutual student as he waited to begin. Sokka was ranging back and forth in a line that extended past the three girls in both directions. Even further back was where they'd moved Appa, who was watching his human friends intently as he lay on the ground. Momo was perched on Sokka's shoulder, making the Water Tribe boy look a bit like a pirate as he stalked his line. "Okay!" he called out, loud enough for Aang to hear him clearly. "Here's how this is gonna work! Aang, what do you think about starting off with airbending?"

"Yeah!" Aang cried back. "That's what I was gonna do anyway!"

"Okay!" Sokka called out. "So Aang's gonna start with some airbending, and then he'll start throwing in some other elements! Aang, you just sort of freestyle it, okay?!"

"Okay!"

"Right! And you three," here Sokka motioned toward the three girls, "I want you guys- _girls_ to watch him as he's bending! If you see him making a mistake while he's bending your element, you yell out and correct him, got it?!"

"Okay!" Katara cried.

"Got it!" Toph yelled.

"All right!" Azula called.

"You got it, Aang?!" Sokka yelled.

"I got it!" Aang cried.

"Here we go…" Azula huffed quietly.

"Every body ready?!" Sokka shouted loudly, raising his right arm.

"Ready!" called Katara.

"Ready!" yelled Azula.

"Ready!" cried Toph.

"Ready!" Aang exclaimed, shifting himself into an airbending stance. He willed his body to remain calm; all the yelling and positioning they'd been doing made this seem more formal than a normal training session, which made him tenser than he typically was before bending.

"All right…" Sokka waved his arm in a wide fan. "**GO!!**"

They hadn't set up a target or anything for him to focus on, so Aang just did as Monk Gyatso had always instructed him: he gave his energies a center, placed it beyond himself in space until he felt a balance between it and him, and directed his chi toward it. Circling his feet sidelong, he passed his arms around each other in a blocking sequence that also gathered the air around him, dust kicking up as it spiraled between his limbs. Opening up, he stroked long spools of wind through his hands and sent them forward in arcs, creating powerful 'waves' of air that howled and sliced through bare space. He went for earthbending next, widening his feet into a horse stance and sinking his body into sequence with the earth as Toph had taught him. He slid forward, trying to move as the earth wanted to move; the ground growled and snapped beneath his feet. He chopped and blocked in double-time, the forward bend of his arms sending a ridge of rock streaking up from the ground in front of him. He then pounded forward with both arms and _struck_ up, fists coming together to box imaginary ears; streaks of stone rippled out of the ground far in front of him, ending abruptly with sharp spires of rock that shot up and forward and would have crushed a person's skull between them where they slammed into each other. Sinking lower and sweeping his foot back, he immediately pulled his arms back and then swirled them around an imaginary ball, and he _snapped_ both of his wrists hard to the left. From the pool on his right a thin wall of water surged out, churning as it raced across his forward path. It passed through the rock he'd raised, the bladelike sheet of water slicing apart the stone and cutting up whatever would have been trapped there in an actual fight. He then chambered his arms as his feet made the brief transition from back stance to forward stance; fists clenched at his sides, he breathed in hot and bright, steam feathering the inside of his nostrils as his lungs warmed. Aang struck forward with a punch and a "ki-**yaa!!**" A jet of flames blazed from his bunched knuckles; the extra breath and the audible cry urged the flames further, bending their edges inward to sculpt a spear tip of fire that hit the soggy, slashed rock with such force that it blew apart the stone, chunks soaring away glowing red hot.

Aang imagined a counterattack imminent from such an assault, and he decided to do some of the experimenting that Sokka had been so enthusiastic about. Switching back to waterbending, he raised the water on the ground with a lifting pull, and then waved his hands to splash it across the space between him and his hypothetical opponent. He switched his feet to a firebending stance- the feet were the key to this whole thing, and it was actually getting his ankles a little tired- and made a chopping motion that was slightly too wide for a practical person-to-person strike or a proper knife hand block. When fire came from his arm, however, it was in a wide, shallow bow that grew even wider as it flew through the air- until it hit the water still suspended by the tense tugging of his other arm. Steam formed immediately, the water boiling and evaporating quickly from the heat of the flames until it blanketed a good portion of the field in front of him. This would have left his foe disguised, true, but also suddenly cut off from any sight of Aang himself. Taking advantage of the disconnect, Aang sunk back down to an earthbender's stance and swiftly, lightly _pummeled_ down through the air in sharp, precise jabs of three fingers. With a rolling rumble, the earth went insane in the midst of the fog: the ground cracked and rose up in chunks, pylons of stone blasted upwards at odd angles, slabs of the ground pulled apart and just as quickly rammed themselves back together. As the fog began to thin around the focus of Aang's attack, it was partially replaced by the dust that the wild earth had thrown up.

Standing far back, Sokka was trying to control his giddiness. "Oh man, oh man, that was _awesome_! Did you see the steam thing?! He totally did the steam thing!"

Rolling her eyes and curling her lip, Azula cupped her hand around her mouth and called out the first critique of the session: "Avatar, that last chop was too loose! Tighten up your movements or you'll burn yourself more than your opponent!"

Aang grimaced; his firebending master _would_ be the first one to criticize him. Still, he tried to take her advice to heart. Keeping his muscles tight, his breathing regular, and his body always, always in control, the young Avatar honed in with his firebending, now on a different imagined target slightly to the left of the original. He punched in rapid succession, his arms moving in sync and delivering a barrage of fireballs that flew through the focus of his attack, sailing on to the wall of the rock bowl where they smashed blazing into the stone. He then decided to attempt a more advanced strike, one Azula had taught him just before they'd left the Earth Kingdom completely. He hadn't practiced it so much (being on water made firebending prohibitive), but it was very similar to an airbending move he knew well. Swiping his hands past each other in a block, Aang relaxed one of his clenched fists, extending his first two fingers as the other three curled loosely in his palm. He breathed in as he stepped forward once, twice, pulling his other, still-fisted hand to his side to gather tension as the fingers drifted carefully forward. At the third forward step, he whipped his open, finger-extended hand back past his side and slightly upwards; his fisted hand shot forward in a weak punch, actually a feint. _Then_ he breathed out, the rush of warmth from his lungs igniting the tense friction of his muscles and producing a spout of fire from his two extended fingers. He stepped forward again, quickly breathing in, and drew the punching fist quickly back with the step and then breathed _out_ and _sliced_, bringing even more speed to a sequence that had actually happened in less than two seconds. The spout of fire became a tall banner, and when he swept it diagonally downward through the air it became a blade, a huge blazing scimitar curve that scythed hugely across his line of vision, even erupting further upon hitting the ground; his whole span of sight rippled warm orange, parting and dancing into swirling, flapping tongues as the fire-slice drenched the empty space in flames.

Azula managed to diminish the extent to which her eyebrows rose, but she could not completely suppress the motion. The Avatar had taken well to that particular technique.

Now Aang moved back to airbending, cycling his arms quickly around each other and making the air swirl. Whipping up a hasty cyclone, he stretched it forward to his pretend foe (the fact that it traveled sideways had inspired Aang, when the technique was being taught to him, to suggest renaming the whole maneuver 'the sideclone'). The spiraling air pulled in the flames on the ground, but Aang breathed in and out and willed them to keep burning. When they were not blown out, the strands of fire found new energy in the moving air, guzzling the swirling winds and setting the cyclone ablaze. It poured forward, air and fire moving without stopping, cycling and smashing through any possible defense.

Parting and chambering his arms, Aang broke the assault at its root, withering the flames and causing the winds to spin out. Then he struck forward with a sudden uppercut; in response, a wedge of rock blasted up from the ground. He ran towards it, channeling the air behind him to make himself faster. Streaking up the makeshift ramp, he launched himself off and spread his arms, then he breathed out and _punched_ down with both hands; a blast of fire erupted from his palms to discourage attacks from below. He hit the ground hard with his heels, sweat pouring down his scalp; his new hair sat wet and heavy against the top of his head, which was _really_ weird, and he had to struggle not to be distracted by the unfamiliar sensation. He straightened up and pulled a boulder from the ground as he did, which he sent flying with a punch.

"Get lower, Twinkle Toes!" Toph called out. Her feet were partially buried in the dirt to follow her student's movements more carefully. "You're too high up! Bend your knees more!"

Aang sank lower in his horse stance, and then he angled his body to the left while separately pivoting his ankles. He slid left in a streak of dust, stopping just a dozen feet from the pool of water. He twisted around until the water was at his back, shifting to a waterbending stance in the same breath. He closed himself up, briefly folding his arms and scrunching his shoulders, building tension. As the water churned behind him, Aang's body sprang open, leaning forward as he stepped and curving his arms out past his head. Boiling surf surged up and out of the pool, sliding gently over Aang without soaking him and sweeping on past, bowling over everything in its way. He pulled up a few rocks directly in the wave's path, and the water swept them up, adding deadly debris to the wall of whitewater.

"Lower, Twinkle Toes!" his earthbending teacher cried again.

Grimacing, Aang adjusted his stance once more, trying to be quick to avoid breaking the larger rhythm of the sequence he'd begun. Since he was going to the trouble, he continued with earthbending. There were plenty of rocks now strewn across the ground; meeting the earth with his feet, he sent them flying forward through the air with quick strikes of his hands almost like he was grappling. Moving back to waterbending, he pulled some of the water splashed on the ground into a long, glistening coil-

"Aang, your feet are too wide!" Katara yelled. "Keep your stance narrower so you can raise yourself up!"

The airbender quickly shortened his stance, trying to keep the incomplete water whip from breaking down as he shifted into proper form. Managing to hold it, he pulled it back, then fanned his hands around and sliced; the water whip cracked as it struck the ground hard. Bending down lower to build power, he sank more weight onto his back leg and launched himself forward, breathing out and setting his foot on fire. He stretched out as his flaming kick passed through the space he'd selected-

"More control!" Azula yelled.

Aang tightened up again in the follow through, landing in a forward stance and shooting fire ahead of him. He followed it up with a ridge of rock-

"More _shove_, Aang!" shouted Toph. "You're hitting too soft!"

Every time one of his teachers corrected him, Aang was compelled to refocus on the particular element they were speaking about, which only meant that when he moved to another element he was even less fully in proper form, which led to yet another correction shouted across the field. Gritting his teeth, the Avatar tried to keep everything he was being told straight. He switched to firebending where he kept his muscles as tight as possible, leading into waterbending where he tried to loosen up more, then more waterbending where he was facing too far forward, which meant that when he went to earthbending he wasn't facing forward enough. Now the critiques were coming fast on top of each other.

"Knees bent!"

"You're too low!"

"Try to be more relaxed!"

"Tighter! More control!"

"**Knees BENT!**"

"Breathe more!"

Frustrated, his head hurting, Aang stepped into an airbending move, which he had no one to critique him about except himself. Knowing by heart the sweeps, the circles of the moving air, the four cardinal points from which a strike always began, he sent a blast of wind howling through the air in front of him. Then he got ready to move into another element-

"Get lower, Twinkle Toes!" Toph called.

"Keep yourself tight!" Azula yelled.

"Open up more!" Katara cried.

In a moment of panic, Aang tried to implement all three suggestions. He felt his body suddenly jerk in what felt like a hundred directions, his chi surge through multiple pathways.

Across the field, Sokka took a step forward. "Wait-"

The world around Aang exploded. The ground blew apart, slabs and chunks of dirt bursting in a cloud of dust as all the water on the ground crashed into him from every direction with a plume of fire bursting open beside and above him and the air sank down from overhead and _popped_ itself like a bubble. The chaos briefly flashed white and then sent water, rock, embers splattering through the air and all around, while wind howled around the big bowl of rock. Flying out of the blast, Aang bounced off the ground once, skipped the next time, then slid along on his side trailing dust until he stopped near the center of the rocky plain, and his legs flopped almost comically against the ground.

"**Aang!**" Katara screamed, starting to run towards him almost as soon as he landed. Toph's lip curled as she felt the older girl hurry away.

Sokka stood still, an expression on his face that was either pained or puzzled, perhaps both. "Wha…" he mewled pathetically.

Azula rolled her eyes with gusto. "I knew this was a bad idea," she growled at him, her lips curled in an angry sneer. "I **knew** it! If the Avatar is damaged because of your stupidity…"

"Oh, _stuff_ it, Bitchbender," Toph drawled, absently working fingers through her heavy bangs.

In the brief silence that followed, Sokka paced back and forth, hands moving up and down like scales. "I just… I don't get it," he finally muttered. "What went wrong? He was doing great…"

"Trying to do too much at once," Toph said. "I may have been feeling him better than you were seeing him. His footwork was a _mess_ right before he blew the fuck up."

Azula crossed her arms. "Clearly, the Avatar is _not_ ready to be using all four elements at the same time in battle."

"Clearly," Toph parroted, trying to sound as prissy as Azula.

"Especially when he had such obvious difficulty integrating his earthbending into the routine," the princess continued.

Toph's head snapped up. "Wait, what?"

"It was painfully obvious," Azula said, her golden eyes glinting. She smiled smugly. "Maybe I could _see_ it better than you could _feel_ it." Toph scowled, though she was facing away from Azula. "All of his other transitions between elements were smooth, or at least _mostly_ smooth. But every time he had to switch to Earth, he had to _stop_, and square himself off. Instead of flowing from one movement to the next he had to _force_ and _shove_ through all his attacks."

"Duh," Toph snapped, "that's how earthbending _works_."

"And it messed _everything_ up!" Azula spat back. "It was the _stiffness_ he had to have to earthbend that threw off the rhythm he built up when he used the other elements!"

"Say that **again**, girl?!" yelled Toph, her voice falling to a threateningly low pitch.

Azula turned sharply on her heel so she was directly facing the blind girl. "_This is all the fault of your element._" She smiled. "Do I need to draw a picture in the dirt?"

Toph's lip rippled in a snarl. "Shut **up**, girl."

"No, I don't think I will."

"Hey…" Sokka said weakly, once again catching on to the situation after it had built in pressure.

"Of course, it's really all the fault of earthbending in general," Azula continued languidly, looking vaguely at her hand as she slowly moved her fingers. "As an earthbender, you're too caught up in it to notice its shortcomings; but as an outside observer, I can tell you that this session just underscores them."

"All of the elements have shortcomings," Sokka tried to point out. Neither girl seemed to notice.

"I thought you said there'd be no more 'superior element' bullshit from you," Toph protested.

"Oh, this completely different," Azula said, her voice light with false innocence. "I'm not saying how Fire is better; I'm saying that Earth is _worse_."

Toph put her fists on her hips. "And tell me, O wise mistress firebender, how _that_ is. Go on. Explain the great secrets of earthbending that the Fire Nation teaches. Being a foreigner, I'd love to learn." By her last words her voice was frosty with menace.

Azula smiled with raised eyebrows. "It's all in the _stagnation_ of your heavy element. All of the other elements _flow_ in their use. Air does, Fire does- even Water does, though like Earth it's ridiculously heavy. Still, Water does shift easily in response to movement, if you can heave it into motion in the first place." Then the former princess narrowed her eyes. "But _not_ Earth."

Toph winced a little. "Earth flows just fine…"

"Are you kidding?! No it doesn't!" Azula exclaimed, sounding surprisingly like the 14-year-old girl that she was. "And don't think I don't know what I'm talking about- I've _watched_ your training with the Avatar, remember?"

A faint flush crept up Toph's neck. "Then you're looking at it wrong," she growled, hastily regaining composure.

"Really?" Azula snapped.

"You don't know shit, Bitchbender," Toph said, smirking. "And you don't know earthbending either!" She stepped forward in a walk that rippled the earth beneath her with each footfall. Azula felt her chest rattling as Toph came to a halt two feet from her. "So be _careful_ when you insult someone else's bending. If you want to pick a fight with me, you're also picking a fight with the ground under your feet."

"And that's supposed to scare me- when _I_ have the _Sun_?!" Azula spat. Her eyes seemed to flash real gold, and when she blinked faint traces of steam curled from her eyelids. She snorted, puffing out smoke. "My bending dances _circles_ around yours. The thing that holds you back, holds the Avatar back, and will always hold your entire worthless _nation_ back is that when fast action is called for the Earth can't **move**!"

Toph's sightless gray eyes bulged at the scope of the insult. Teeth grinding together, the young girl's fists clenched tightly. She snapped her feet far apart in a burst of dust; the walls of the rock bowl rumbled as she fell into horse stance. "You wanna see earth **move**, Bitchbender?!" she snarled, pressing cracks into the stone with her heels. "I'll show you just how fast earth can **move**!"

Azula was in forward stance faster than Sokka could blink, steam dancing from her fingertips. The two prodigies went completely still as they focused all of their senses on each other, each one assessing the rooting, the mood, and the physical fitness of her presumptive opponent-

"**Ho**, now!" Sokka said very quickly, shoving both arms into the space between the girls, which had shrunk dramatically in the past few heartbeats. "Flying off the handle for no good reason is _my_ job, remember?"

Both benders turned their attention to the interloper, their intensity unsettling Sokka for a moment. Nodding to clear his discomfort, he stared hard at both faces. Toph's gray eyes were narrowed behind her dense black bangs, and her eyebrows, so rarely seen amidst her hair, were low. Azula was much more impassive, her golden eyes no wider or narrower than they usually were. Her brow was furrowed, however, and though her large, ruby lips were very often pressed together, they were not always closed so tightly, such that they appeared flatter than normal.

Still, Hakoda's son had grown up with his grandmother and his younger sister, and therefore was not unfamiliar with strong women. He cleared his throat. "I think we're all a little strung out. Okay, maybe Azula was right- maybe it _was_ too soon for Aang to start bending multiple elements." The firebender snarled; a plume of smoke puffed from her mouth where her lips parted. "We've been flying for a few days straight, we haven't seen land in a while… I'm surprised _Appa's_ not griping at this point. But we still have to make it to the Fire Nation, and even after that it's not over. Aang, clearly, has to do more work in all his bending training. That'll be hard if two of his teachers kill each other, right?" Toph growled at him; Sokka flinched and stifled a cry. He quickly recovered himself, though. "And really, who has the right to criticize a bending style they don't know? Heck, I'm not a bender at all! There's no way I could say if firebending was faster than earthbending or earthbenders were tougher than firebenders or anything like that." He desperately hoped they wouldn't remember the times he had made comments precisely like that. "The only one who could really say things like that is… the Avatar, right?" He glanced past the two girls, to where Katara was still bent over Aang. "And he's conked out right now. _Sooooo_, we'll ask him when he comes to, and til then there's no good reason for you guys to fight!" Sokka said the last part very quickly and proceeded to grin like an idiot.

Azula slid her gaze to the left, toward Toph. Toph gave no corresponding gesture; all elements of body language involving the eyes were unknown to her. The blind girl made a thoughtful noise in her throat, however, and after a minute she rolled her shoulders widely, bouncing her head back and forth as she did. The atmosphere warmed by a few degrees; Sokka let out a breath he hadn't meant to hold. Sending a mostly mild glare at the earthbender, Azula huffed and turned to her right, walking away. Toph likewise pivoted, turning to her left and walking off. The two girls' movements were such that they were now back-to-back as they separated, with Sokka roughly the median of the increasing distance between them. The Water Tribe boy chose to walk forward, heading toward his sister and the Avatar to check on them. He was actually quite proud of himself; he really did feel that he had averted a crisis just now. Toph and Azula were immensely powerful benders, and they were both extremely proud of their respective abilities. Toph was, of course, far better company than the Fire Nation princess, but where bending was concerned they were much alike. Their bending formed part of their self-definition; therefore, if they felt that their skills or their element were being insulted, they were both quick to retaliate. The fact that the girls' egos had been smashing into _each other_ had only inflamed tensions further. It was almost miraculous that they'd been able to settle down without starting to fight-

Azula and Toph were about forty feet apart when Azula picked up her heel and spun around; Toph felt the other girl's movements and matched them. The blind girl went one better, sinking to her horse stance as she whirled around. She _pounded_ her fists through the empty air, and the earth responded: the ground cracked in front of her and boulders burst from the churning dirt, flying toward the former princess. Azula had been in forward stance before Toph's arms had moved, and she was quicker to attack: sticking her first two fingers out from her hand, she chopped up and angled forward in tight, precise strikes that sent jets of blue fire streaking through the air. The attack appeared inadequate compared to Toph's- but then Azula pulled her hands back to her body, curling her torso inward as she did to build torque. Four fingers from two hands touched, and she shoved her arms forward with movement built from her entire body and powered by breath; a pulsing fireball shot from her hands roughly in the middle of the two jets already bearing down on her opponent.

"No! No!" Sokka cried. He went unnoticed amid bending already too deadly for him to step into.

With the boulders seconds away, Azula lunged forward, dodging the furthest ahead of the flying stone. The rest were coming bunched together, but there was a narrow gap between two of them. Azula put out her hands, wincing as they scraped the rocky ground, and swung her hips hard to the front. Pivoting sideways, she pushed from her left arm to her right arm and cartwheeled through the rocks; pushing hard with her right arm, she sprang up and back onto her feet, where she immediately swung her foot out and swept low. She swiped the air with her arm, sending an arc of blue flames traveling through the air.

Dealing with fireball was old hat for Toph: cycling her arms, she brought up a sturdy wall of rock that thundered when the flames hit it, blasting off its face but not breaking it apart. The fire swipe required broader defense. The earthbender spread her arms and pushed backwards on her feet, sharply lifting her arms as she did. Thick, backward-swept walls of earth sprang from the ground just as the blue arc came close- as before, the exterior of the walls was blasted by the fire, but the fortifications endured. Snapping the broken wall pieces to attention, Toph punched them all toward Azula.

Azula sneered at the repeat use of the flying boulders. She dodged them all as they came, sometimes so closely that her clothes brushed against the craggy rock. But soon she was tired of dodging. As the next round of boulders came, the firebender pulled a fist behind her back, cycling it to bring flames around her clenched hand. As she weaved and ducked, she squeezed her fist tighter in pulses; the fire engulfing her fist grew larger and became a brighter shade of blue. When Toph sent rocks at her for a third time, she stopped dodging. Some of the smaller rocks she batted aside with her free hand; others she shattered with an elbow strike or a kick. She broke one big rock apart on her shoulder, barely wincing at the force of the blow; lifting up her foot, she brought it down in an ax kick that demolished a second larger boulder. Another big rock flew at her, this one nearly as big as her own body. It was what Azula had been waiting for. Firming up her stance, she rooted herself to the ground and swung her flaming fist to the front. The fire gleamed as she slammed it into the surface of the boulder. The rock stilled, suddenly riddled with blue cracks, and then it _exploded_ with a burst of blue; chips and chunks flew in all directions trailing dark blue smoke through the air.

"I think you're done **hiding**, earthbender!" the princess yelled, sprinting forward toward the walls Toph had raised. Sensing her as she charged, Toph's hands flew every which way as she struck to cripple the firebender. Thin spikes of rock shot from the ground dangerously close to where Azula was putting her feet, some coming high enough and close enough to break her jaw. She was much too quick on her feet, however, sliding and pivoting as she ran so that each thrust of the earth just missed her. At one point, the firebender hurled herself forward, hitting the ground with her hands just as two spikes came out to smash her skull; she struck upwards with her bent legs, her feet shattering the tips of the rock spikes where they almost came together. Then she pushed up into a flip that got her back to her feet and back on her way.

As she drew close to Toph's rock walls, Azula lit streaks of fire in both of her hands. She danced around the spikes that sprang up everywhere, and used the blue flames to slice up rock spires that got too close. Her feet were shifting her round and sidelong, building speed and force as she progressed; likewise, her arms built up momentum as she cycled them around. All the while, she breathed firmly and deeply, heating herself from within. When she was a blur of black and dark brown and shining blue, she came in front of the thick stone barriers and slammed to a halt, feet biting into the ground at the abruptness of the stop. She carried the relentless momentum of her dancing up through her torso, into her burning, throbbing arms, then she breathed **out** and shifted her body **forward** and pushed one arm up, and the other arm down, and her fists struck each other in the middle like two pieces of flint.

A _curtain_ of blue fire shot four times as tall as Azula into the air and blasted sideways toward the rock wall, carving a trench in the ground as it progressed. Toph's sightless eyes bulged as the raw power of the fire registered in her senses, and she dove to one side as the tall flames smashed completely through a section of her wall, blasting huge chunks of rock in all directions and scorching the stone black where it moved. Taking a deep breath, Azula held the heat in her muscles, raising it until her insides felt white hot, then she swept both arms past each other and powerfully _exhaled_-

The fire curtain spread _sideways_ and **surged** like a tidal wave. Toph's earthen barriers were ripped to shreds in the howling firestorm, stones charred and shattered by the blue inferno. The blind girl dove for the earth to escape being immolated by Azula's attack. Sokka was awed and frightened by the towering flames, a spectacular display of firebending's raw power.

The air was filled with dust and smoke as the fiery attack subsided. Just as soon as it had diminished, however, the air flashed blue again; there was a wave of heat, and the obscuring clouds billowing through the battlefield vanished, revealing Azula waving her hand toward the sky. Lowering it, she stepped carefully forward, blue flames curling up her arm. Golden eyes scanned the ground as she kept her ears open, hunting for some hint of Toph's next move. _Or perhaps her blackened corpse... _the fire princess considered. The thought gave her a twisted, savage pleasure. It was unlikely, however: Toph was too good a bender to fall to even so powerful an attack as hers, not when she had earth all around her to employ. So… where was she? "Come out, Toph Bei Fong!" Azula called across the field. She leered, her voice mocking: "_Come out, come out, wherever y-_"

"**HERE!!**" the high, sharp voice screamed just as the ground before Azula burst open. Something dark and smooth with a trail of green and desert yellow lunged out of the bedrock. It hit Azula around the right shoulder, hammering her in the collarbone and chest; the firebender sailed back through the air, landing a stone's throw away with a force that rattled her teeth.

The blow near her ribs sent Azula into painful coughing; wiping her mouth, she was shaken and enraged to see blood on her hand. Spitting, she glared at Toph as the blind girl rose to her feet from a crouch. Toph's arms were sheathed in earthen gloves up to her elbows, and her head was covered in a stone helmet swept smooth by her rapid burrowing through the ground; the helmet had a slab of stone that came down over her face, covering it completely. She put her hands defiantly on her hips, which only raised Azula's hackles further. "Merchant _whelp_!" she snarled as she struggled to her feet, eyes flashing.

"Yeah, yeah, _yeah_," the muffled retort came from behind the stone faceguard. "I _came out_; happy?"

"**Rrragh!!**" Azula roared, blasting fire from her hand. Her eyes blazed, flashing gold and even, almost, burning red.

The attack was hasty and sloppy; Toph easily dodged it. Reaching up with a stone hand, she rapped the bottom of her helmet's face shield, causing its lower half to break away; the remainder of the shield swept across her eyes (rather like a visor) while dipping down slightly in the middle to cover her nose. She struck a fighting pose, hands up in guard. "Is that all you _got_, Bitchbender?"

Azula stormed toward her, eyes burning red in rage. "Come here, cretin!"

Toph attacked, lobbing boulders at the approaching firebender. "You want a piece of me?" she yelled, launching stone after stone. "_You want a piece of me?!_"

Dodging Toph's attacks, Azula made fire in her hands and flattened them out, then pressed her palms together, forming a disc of flames. With a twist of her wrists, it started to spin, and a sharp whine rose up as the disc sliced the air like a circular saw. "No," she growled, "I want **two**!" She flung the fire saw forward leveled at Toph's waist.

The blind girl quickly hurled herself to the ground as the blue disc advanced, narrowly missing her and shaving off some of her stone helmet as it whirled overhead. Having successfully avoided being cut in half, Toph rose to her feet; she twitched, and the helmet and gloves made of rock crumbled away, freeing her movements. Azula was on her in the span of a second, fists blazing. Toph raised hasty slabs of stone to block the flaming jabs, twisting and pivoting around the strikes. Having thrown the firebender back with a parry, Toph sunk even lower in her horse stance. She balled her small hands into fists, struck them both _forward_, and then fired them _backward_ like a pair of pistons. Long cracks shot through the earth away from her back, rapidly traveling through the edge of the rock bowl and up its craggy walls. Azula's eyes widened as great pieces of stone seemed to come loose from the tall cliff walls- then Toph yanked her arms forward.

The wall of the rock bowl _exploded_ with a burst of crumbling, roaring rock that blasted into the air and just as quickly started to descend. Azula realized they were falling _towards her_. She looked with shock and horror at Toph. Toph merely smirked, looking truly evil. "Better **hide**, firebender."

Azula took off in a run, trying to put as much distance between Toph and herself as possible- between the falling rocks and herself as possible. She was barely ten feet away when the first small stones hit the ground, powdering and sending up puffs of dust. Larger ones shattered in flinty shrapnel, some of it cutting her right arm and side. The first _big_ rock hit the ground with such force that it bounced her into the air; she landed hard on her heels and kept running. Dodging a boulder bigger than her required her to literally flip out of the way. The barrage, such an awesome display of what earthbenders in their element were capable of, filled the air with dust. When a large sharp rock landed a few steps away from her, Azula knew she needed better defense. Contracting into a ready stance, she curled her hands around each other, circling them almost the way the Avatar did when he was airbending. Breathing out, she expanded the circle of her hands wider and wider, creating a ball of blue flames that widened even when her hands no longer shaped it. It passed harmlessly over her as it stretched wider, and when the bottom of it touched the ground it was squashed away, leaving a dome of powerful fire surrounding her and keeping her safe. Rocks that hit the swirling flames melted or blew apart. Inside, Azula started to sweat as she maintained the shield; one thing she never told anyone about this maneuver was that it was very hot inside the fire dome.

Finally, the sound of rocks hitting the ground quieted. After waiting precisely five more seconds, Azula breathed in and chambered her hands, causing the fire dome to vanish. Her eyes bulged: the ground around her was _ruined_, a stirred up, broken mess from the sheer volume of stones that had smashed into it. Some of the broken ground was even beneath her feet, the cracking and shifting having extended past her defense. She was just thinking to look for Toph when the ground began to rumble. Looking up, she saw the earthbender riding towards her on a mound of rolling rock, hands held high over her head. "**I'MA FUCK YOU UP, BITCHBENDER!!**"

Azula prepared a powerful fireball in her hands-

Suddenly, hard wet whips cracked into _both_ of them. Azula was hurled back five feet; Toph, who seem to have been struck harder, was thrown from her stony mount, the rumbling rocks collapsing as she lost control of them. The two benders sprawled on the ground, slightly damp in different places, and looked up to see Katara standing some distance before them, water whips flowing around her and glinting in the sunlight. She looked positively livid. "_**What**_** are you two **_**doing?!**_" she screamed, hair flying as she gesticulated with fury. "I leave and you're trying to figure out what went wrong- I come back and you're _trying to kill each other!_ This is the kind of stupidity I expect from the boys, not from you! Not even you, Azula, you **know** better!! Toph, I can't believe you let her goad you into a fight! Honestly, could you two be any more selfish?! You're like little girls fighting over-"

Toph and Azula shared a glare, then both pivoted towards the waterbender. Azula flung a blast of fire; Toph shot a piece of stone. Yelping at the incoming attacks, Katara slid to the side to avoid the fire, though it still burned her skirt. The rock struck her in the side, though, knocking her off her feet. The other two girls got up as she fell back, eager to resume their fight. Seeing them attacking each other once more, Katara's head throbbed with completely irrational rage. "Oh, that's **it!**" she cried. Shifting into stance, she pulled water from the nearby lake and flattened it into cutting waves, aiming it at Toph and Azula as they were just clashing face-to-face. Both benders were stunned by the water attack and rolled out of the way. They gave attention to Katara, and the battle was formally joined.

Katara focused on Toph first, because she was most annoyed at the blind girl- she should have known better than to fight with Azula! She swept a wave of water low and brought it up like a shuttle loom, clocking the earthbender in the chest; Toph was knocked off her feet and then swept back by the churning water. She aimed a blast of water at Azula next, but the firebender was less surprised: her hands burning blue, Azula hardened her stance and met the water with both arms extended. She parted her arms in a surge of muscle, and the water spout split apart as it burned into steam. The firebender then aimed a series of fiery bolts at Katara, who dodged them by going low to the ground. Then the waterbender pumped her arms up, shifting the water's state with a flick of her wrists: Azula gasped as something cold shot against her face, and her cheek began to bleed from a cut as the spike of ice glistened in the sun.

Katara herself cried out as the ground seemed to clamp onto her calf like a dog, plates of stone bending up and snapping around her leg to trap her in place. Toph was on her feet again, and the earthbender plucked from the ground a disc-shaped stone. Gripping it hard, she began to spin around in a circle, swinging it around her as she did. Katara was suddenly worried as Toph prepared to _throw_ the stone discus at her. Fortunately, a blast of fire hit Toph right in the shoulder, causing her to let go of the discus and sending it streaking into the side of the rock bowl. Toph cracked the earth beneath Azula's feet, but the firebender was much lighter in her stances than Katara, and she easily pirouetted out of the way of the trap.

Meanwhile, Katara had freed herself from Toph's snare with a blast of high pressure water. Churning the water on the ground into a wave, she fanned it towards Toph, then snapped her arm back abruptly; the wave halted in place and froze, but the energy was still in it, and it burst into dozens of tiny ice darts that flew at Toph through the air. The earthbender raised rock shields to block the attack. Azula slashed an arc of fire at Katara, and the waterbender sent a wave streaking past her in defense. Toph punched her rock shield, causing it to leave the ground and hurtle towards both other girls. Katara pushed away from herself with her arms, and she slid quickly backwards along the damp, water-soaked ground. Azula performed a series of flips that ended in one very high flip that propelled her over the flying stone; twisting in the air, the firebender shot towards Toph, her leg extended in a flaming kick. The earthbender rolled to the side as the strike cratered and scorched the ground, then shot up a pillar of earth right at Azula's spine, only for the firebender to put her hands backwards, palms hitting the stone pylon as it rose; then Azula _spun_ on her palms, pivoting her body through the air and bringing her leg around to kick Toph in the face. Sharp discs of ice slashed them both in the arm, and they turned back to strike Katara. Faced with the double assault, the waterbender circled currents of water around herself, then brought them together and up in multiple torrents of water that cycled into a spinning Octopus Form. Toph took the implicit challenge: plunging her arms up to the elbows into the ground, the earthbender yanked them out and they were encased in long, tall pillars of earth. Raising them above her head, where they were six times her own height, Toph brought them down on Katara's Octopus Form, whose watery arms churned and swiped as the strike hit them. The blind girl was repelled, but she hardened her stance and brought her earthen clubs down again, determined to break through the waterbender's attack. Azula did not join in, instead taking several steps backwards from the fray. Gritting her teeth, she dropped into a stance that she made sure was perfect. Putting her index finger and ring finger together in both hands, she breathed evenly as she slowly cycled her arms around each other and around her body. By the second cycle, pure energy crackled on her fingertips. Straightening gently, she prepared for the third cycle, and then to allow the lightning to travel the path she had set for it-

The air _bucked_ all three girls like an ostrich horse: Katara was flung out of her Octopus Form, Toph's arms lost their clubs as she flew back, and Azula's lightning attack dissolved in a fizzle of sparks as she was hurled through the air. The three benders ate dirt as they were pressed into the hard ground. The winds quickly became as fast as a gale; raising her head with some difficulty, Katara gasped.

Aang was hanging in the air, which howled around him so powerfully that it partially obscured view of him. His hair fluttered on his head, his hands were bunched into fists. But what were really surprising were his eyes: they were _glowing_. And of course, so were his tattoos, arrows blazing on the backs of his hands and on his forehead; his scalp glistened beneath the dark hair that had overgrown it. He opened his glowing mouth, and spoke one word, so deep and resonant that everyone's chest rattled:

"_**STOP.**_"

What little fight was left in Katara, Azula, and Toph drained from them instantly. The winds grew slower, and the airbender gently descended, his eyes and tattoos slowly losing their light. When the air was finally still, Aang's eyes were once more gray, and then grew heavy as he sagged on his feet. "Aang!" Katara yelled, hurrying to grab him as he swayed. Toph and Azula followed.

Far away from the drama, Sokka poked his head up from the edge of Appa's saddle. Seeing the marked increase in calm, he slumped back against their luggage and sighed contentedly. "Whew! Glad that's over!" He turned to Momo, who was eating a nut nearby. "See? I told you they'd work it out on their own." Sokka's seat rumbled, and Appa lifted his head to look back at the Water Tribe boy. Sokka returned the look with one of his own. "What?"

Appa rumbled, tilting his head slightly.

"Yes, I knew they'd work it out. They needed to. And _that's_ why I stayed out of it."

Appa tilted his head further.

"What?"

Appa rumbled deeply.

"Don't give me that look."

As Toph, Azula, and Katara crowded around him, Aang returned to his senses. Blinking his eyes, he tried to figure out how he'd gotten into Katara's lap (not that he was complaining). The last thing he remembered was waking up and seeing his three teachers fighting. Then he'd been _very_ annoyed… and he'd felt a rush of blood to his head, and a heaviness come over every bone in his body. "Guys?" he asked. "What happened?"

The three girls exchanged glances- or at least Katara and Azula did; Toph merely tilted her head. "Aang…" Katara began gently.

Azula crossed her arms and sniffed. "Hmph- I _told_ you I didn't break the Avatar State."

* * *

Thanks for reading. The next chapter will be a flashback chapter- going all the way back to the beginning of this hypothetical Book 3. We'll see how Azula came to join Aang's company. And we'll learn why Toph swears like a sailor these days.


	4. Past Tense, Part 1

Greetings, readers! As you may or may not be aware, Nickelodeon will resume airing new episodes of _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ on **July 14th**. That would be about two and a half months from the date of this newest chapter submission. Nickelodeon, I assume, is run by chimpanzees. So until then, you'll all have to get your Avatar fix somewhere, and I'll be trying my hardest to insure that I can deliver. I'll work as hard as I always do to keep everyone in character, and to keep the twists and turns of the plot believable for the kind of setting and the kind of story that Mike and Bryan have created. Of course, that isn't to say I won't _surprise_ you all at various points...

That said, let's move on to the newest chapter! This one is actually a two-parter, and it's also a _flashback_. If you've been wondering just when Azula joined up with Aang, just how these different circumstances changed the Avatar's journey to the Fire Nation, and just why Toph swears like a sailor, you're about to be informed.

* * *

_The throne room was as dark as it had ever been, from her earliest memories of it, and some time ago she'd figured out why: to make the flames that much more magnificent. It reflected both the brilliance and the inscrutability of the Fire Lord; not even the brightest fire could fully illumine the great depths of his comprehension. Less metaphysically, it also made the curtain of flames at the room's end impossible to ignore, and by extension, the raised dais behind the fire. The raised dais upon which the figure, tall-crowned, sat waiting for them._

Father_, Azula thought. No additional feelings were attached; she was, as she often did, simply observing. The princess stood in the great iron doorway, pausing, absorbing the details of the room her senses revealed. Detaching her assessment of a situation from her personal impressions of it was something she had always been good at. She was a far cry from the one standing to her right, fidgeting in armor he'd grown unused to, even as his back was rigid in unease. Azula glanced sideways, catching his golden eye in hers. She sent him a carefully calculated look- comforting, but not too comforting, insuring that some of his unease would remain. "Don't worry, Zuzu," she whispered softly. "It'll be fine."_

_From the left side, Zuko was practically unreadable: the dark, scarred skin sheathing his head from the eye socket back allowed no visible details in the dim, flickering light. It was one of the few natural advantages her brother had over her, yet it was enough to annoy her. Anyone whose state of mind she could not assess at a glance was- with the exception of Mai- someone she could not readily manipulate. That _Zuko_ would be such a person, even under very particular circumstances, only made it more aggravating. She was quietly grateful, then, when the once-banished, now-redeemed prince turned his whole head toward her. The unblemished right side of his face, pulsing orange in the distant firelight, readily displayed his nervousness and his simmering frustration. His hair was pulled back in a topknot, which just seemed to tighten his already tense face. "Do you…" he began softly, but did not speak further._

_She gave him a small smile. "Just let me do all the talking, okay?"_

_Zuko bit his lip, but then, with some faint reluctance, nodded. He turned back to the front, just as the air cracked; the sharp report of a spear butt pounding the black marble floor was especially loud in the echoing quiet. "Servants and supplicants of the Fire Lord, approach the Blazing Throne and show fealty to His Majesty!"_

_At the herald's behest, the royal siblings walked forward, shoulders straight, heads held high. The protocol was not usual for Azula's visits with her father, but she was not unfamiliar with it. Nor was it unexpected: upon receiving word of her return from the Earth Kingdom, with Zuko and Iroh in tow, her father had requested that she and her brother present themselves to him in a formal audience. Seeing no danger in the extra protocol, and admitting that Zuko's reclamation of his birthright would make such formality appropriate, Azula had assented. The two of them had been sped to the palace by litter immediately after their Triumph was finished._

"_Halt!" the herald cried when Zuko and Azula were just before the raised stage. The heat from the curtain of fire necessitated light armor for the guards at this distance, and metal weapons were generally not carried. Neither concession ultimately mattered: every soldier allowed so close to the throne was a master firebender. Their loyalty had been tested and demonstrated. And even still they paled- everyone paled- in comparison to the Fire Lord's bending power. "Loyal subjects of the Fire Lord, present yourselves in your devotion!"_

_Zuko and Azula dropped to one knee, then placed the opposite hand on the floor, bending downward at the waist and leveling their eyes at the ground. Zuko's eyes had closed, and the muscles around them were twitching._

_The herald turned on his heel to face the flames. "Fire Lord Ozai, I present to you loyal subjects: Princess Azula, your own of Lady Ursa, and Prince Zuko, your own of Lady Ursa! Scions of your bloodline, children of Agni, executors of your will, heirs to your throne!" There was a widespread shuffling as the guards before the stage, including the herald, dropped to their knees and bent low. For a brief moment after, there was painful silence._

"_Guards of the Throne," the Fire Lord said smoothly, "withdraw from us. I would speak with my children."_

"_As you command, my Lord," the herald answered. Rising to their feet, the guards kept themselves bowed with their heads down; their posture did not change as they departed, stepping backwards into the gloom._

_With rustling rush of air, the curtain of flames diminished, burning lower into the trench at the front of the stage. Unobscured at last, Fire Lord Ozai gazed at his son and daughter with a serene countenance, his brilliant golden eyes partially lidded. Zuko dared a look upwards, but just as quickly bowed his head again. "Father…" he croaked, his voice rusted and broken._

"_My Lord," Azula purred, speaking softly; sound traveled well through the front of the throne room._

"_Welcome home, Princess Azula," said Ozai, his voice as smooth and deceptively comforting as his daughter's. Casting a careful glance to her right, he appraised his son. "Welcome home, Prince Zuko… and welcome, welcome back to your own country and your own people."_

_Meeting his father's gaze, Zuko swallowed hard, a mix of elation and terror churning in his stomach. "Thank you… father. I've longed for this day… I have dreamed of it for so long."_

_Azula resisted the urge to snort at her brother's overwrought sentimentality. Zuko still had not learned restraint. Likely, he would never learn it. Of course, that made him her willing fool… Ozai was speaking again. "The day was long delayed, my son- but I can think of no greater cause for your return than what you and your sister have achieved. Together, my children, you have removed the two greatest obstacles in our nation's path to victory._

"_With Ba Sing Se fallen and the Earth King fled, the Earth Kingdom is no longer a credible threat- it lacks a head, even a symbolic one. Robbed of their final great city, the people of the Earth Kingdom will act out of panic, splintering into small confederacies and weak alliances between one province and another."_

"_The five senior generals were eliminated as well," Azula pointed out. "The Earth Kingdom's armies have no strategic guidance and no credible source of information from beyond their own areas of operation."_

"_Excellent, and they will likely fight amongst themselves before they are willing to unite against their true foe."_

_Azula nodded gently. "The strife was already starting as Zuko and I left the country."_

_Ozai smiled chillingly. "We will let them claw at each other for a brief while, then we will snap them up, piece by piece. They are no longer dangerous. The only nation that endures in strength is the Northern Water Tribe, and the time is soon approaching when they will be utterly wiped out. But if this victory is of great importance, the other task you have accomplished, my children, is of equal splendor, perhaps even superior to the first." The Fire Lord's eyes glittered. "The Avatar is dead."_

"_As far as we know, anyway," Azula commented. "We were unable to secure his body- the waterbender he travels with was able to outmaneuver us, and your __**brother**__ managed to cover her retreat despite our superior numbers."_

_The Fire Lord's face twisted into a scowl. "Iroh adds this treachery to a host of other disgraceful acts. He will pay for all of them." Zuko's whole body tensed, but he fought his first instincts and remained calm. This was well, because Ozai turned his attention to his son. "Nevertheless, it is certain the Avatar was at least mortally wounded. And I am told you had a hand in it, Prince Zuko."_

_Zuko's eye twitched; he looked sidelong at Azula, but she merely smiled gently. "It would not have happened without him, father."_

"_As you stated in your message," Ozai said. He smiled at his son; it was, perhaps, intended to be comforting, but it could not help but look slightly sinister to Zuko. "You have truly shown your faithfulness to the Fire Nation, Prince Zuko. When you were tested, you proved your dedication to your country, your people, and your father."_

_Zuko shuddered. "I… have never ceased to be dedicated to my country, father."_

_Azula was surprised. Zuko knew what he was saying; he had just declared that he considered _all_ of his actions a mark of dedication to the Fire Nation, including... But Ozai, to her further surprise, nodded gently. "Yes, I have grown to believe this as well. It seems I have misjudged you, my son… my brave son… my __**loyal**__ son."_

_That was when Azula realized that something was wrong. Something… it was in the way her father was speaking, the notes of his voice, the careful force and emphasis placed, or not placed, on every word he spoke. It raised flags of alarm in her head._

_Ozai continued. "It is a great joy indeed to have you home again, Prince Zuko. I have thought, of late, that it was a mistake to banish you- though it appears your endurance of the world's hardships have improved your character."_

_Zuko, for almost the first time since he had approached the throne, raised his head and met his father's eyes. "Father… I behaved dishonorably in our duel… I put the strength of your rule into question…"_

"_I thought as much, at the time," the Fire Lord interjected, "and I also thought you weak. You must pardon me, Prince Zuko… though I endeavor to be considerate in my judgments, I am on occasion angry, and my actions are colored by wrath."_

_Azula had to try very hard to keep pace with this strange new reality. Was her father… admitting that Zuko's banishment… was a __**mistake**__?_

"_But since you have demonstrated your fealty to me in such grand fashion, I have had occasion to rethink that day, and your conduct in the Agni Kai. And where before I saw fear, and weakness, I now see only what you professed as the source of your restraint: loyalty." Ozai's face grew stern. "A thing I have not valued as highly as I should of late- as certain recent discoveries have made evident."_

_Now it was Azula who tensed, muscles going taut as she continued to kneel. She always, always tried to keep three steps ahead of any exchange she took part in, anticipating the moves her interlocutors would make and reevaluating each assumption as the encounter unfolded. The way this discussion with her father and brother was progressing… Could it be? No- he could not have found out. There was nothing _to _find out, not at this point in time._

_But when she raised her head, Ozai was looking at her. He was one of the few who could control his face well enough to hide his mood from her, though at present his gaze was particularly intense. "Princess Azula," he said gently, in a low voice that made him sound a bit more like Zuko, "you have since childhood been a testament to the excellence of the royal line. In all measures of greatness, you have excelled: intelligence, propriety, bending prowess, dedication to the war effort. A large part of the conquest of Ba Sing Se was a product of your brilliance and leadership. You have been an unparalleled executor of my will, and all I could wish for in a daughter."_

_Perfectly controlled, Azula nodded her head. "Yes, father."_

_She held his gaze intently, looking for some sign of his intentions. Then, the Fire Lord sighed- but she did not find real weariness in him. "Why, then, Azula- having received so much from me, being so blessed with my favor- why do you draw your plans against me?"_

_So that was it. A painful chill plummeted down her throat and froze her innards. Even so, perhaps… "Father… I do not understand…"_

"_Do you not?" Ozai said with a raise of his eyebrows. Then there was noise from the far left and right of the stage. From the gloom on either side, a guard emerged, each one forcing a man in front of them- and both men's hands were bound from behind. The man with the left guard was somewhat young, with unusually short hair for a Fire Nation citizen; his topknot was likewise short, and sharply creased. The man being shoved forward on the right was considerably older, thin and bent with age; his pointed white beard fell past his chest. Both men were known to all three royals. The younger man was Zha-Win, one of the guards stationed especially at the royal family's apartments within the palace. The old man was named Qin, and he had been the chief administrator of the palace's many servants since the reign of Ozai's father, Azulon. Stopping beside the stage just before the throne, the guards roughly shoved the two men down, forcing them to their knees. Ozai kept his eyes on his daughter's face, looking for any shift in it that would betray her emotions. Azula, however, kept her face calm, despite the inner havoc being wreaked at the sight of these two men in custody. Ozai cleared his throat. "Zha-Win, I imagine, was easy enough to bribe; young men are easily swayed by promises of power. Qin is more surprising- I would never have suspected so long and dedicated a career could be compromised. He was surprisingly loyal to you, as well. It was only under significant coercion that he would admit to being in your confidence." There were lash marks visible on Qin's upper arms and at the base of his neck._

_Zuko had risen to his feet; his attention flew from his father to his sister to the two prisoners, golden eyes wide in shock. When he settled finally on Azula, his face twisted in familiar disgust. "What did you _do_?!"_

_Azula remained kneeling, her head bent down. "It is rather what she intended to do," Ozai spoke, moving his hands from his knees and folding them in his lap. "Your sister intended to eliminate me, possibly you as well, and take the throne for herself. I am not certain of the precise means, but given the conspirators she employed, I can venture some guesses." The Fire Lord smirked viciously. "Poisoning my tea, slitting my throat in the night- or perhaps such stratagems are too obvious for her especial cunning? Perhaps she intended to wait until after the final battle, when I was exhausted from combat, and weary me into complete collapse, blaming my death on overexertion?" Ozai sneered at her. "All of these have been attempted before. The history of our family is fraught with treachery, Azula- plots to usurp fathers, brothers, cousins, uncles. For the security of my throne, I must be well-versed in guile. Indeed, I find myself disappointed that I stopped you so easily. Was your scheming so threadbare, your plot so fragile?" Azula said nothing and kept her head down. "Or were you not yet ready?" Ozai's eyes flashed. "Yes, that is more likely- that you were discovered at the beginning of a good trap rather than the end of a poor one."_

"_Forgive me, O Princess!" Qin shouted, his voice broken and frail. "I have not the strength of my youth, else I would have held out to the end!" The old man shrieked as the soldier holding him almost crushed his thin wrists._

"_You will see that end soon enough, traitor," snarled the Fire Lord. He turned back toward his daughter. "But even if you were not preparing to betray me immediately, Azula, your current scheme has only underscored your impatience. Why could not wait until the war's end to begin plotting? A disruption in the leadership of this nation right now could make the difference between victory and defeat. We are not yet so secure in our empire that we can afford to waste time with cloak-and-dagger plots." He met his son's gaze, and his eyes were fierce, but not for Zuko's sake. "You see, Prince Zuko, for all your sister's talents, she is flawed where you have always excelled: she is incapable of putting her country before herself. The wants of others will always be secondary to her own."_

_It __**hurt**__ to hear that, oh but it hurt. Azula was almost trembling; it took all her self-control to keep still. She even let a twitch free, when Zuko replied, "I've noticed she has a talent for getting her way."_

_Ozai continued to smile. "Well put- but this time her reach has exceeded her grasp. You are a traitor to the throne, Azula, and such a crime is not one to be forgiven. Have you anything to say on your own behalf?"_

_Azula kept her mouth firmly shut. She was done here- done, finished, with no room to salvage anything. She had gambled and lost, played with fire and been burnt. All she could do now was _save herself_, and her mind raced at blinding speed to fight a way out of this nightmare. _I know the palace sublevels well enough. If I could reach one of the passageways… if I could get out of this room…

"_No?" Ozai said at length. "Very well; it makes no difference anyway. You are under arrest, Azula. Come quietly, and I may tell the dungeon masters to show you kindness." He glanced toward his son and spoke kindly: "Prince Zuko, I know how much you will enjoy this: please take your sister into custody."_

No no no no no no **no no NO** _Zuko __**would not- ZUKO**__ would not be her jailer! That was the cruelest insult, and her father knew it. Rage poured into her limbs, giving her furious energy as Zuko bore down on her, just a step away. Her mind moved so quickly it seemed to slow time. _That was smart of father- Zuzu's too close for bending, and he's better at hand-to-hand than me. _But she would not be taken by him- she __**would not-**_

_Zuko was just about to lay his hands on her when Azula blurred into action. Springing up from her crouch, she dug her nails into her brother's shoulders and __**rammed**__ her knee into his gut as hard as she possibly could. Groaning, Zuko doubled over, and Azula spun around him as his balance faltered, keeping her hold on his shoulders as she placed him between herself and the throne. She began to lope backwards as fast as she could move while dragging her taller, heavier sibling._

"_Seize her!" Ozai roared, rising to his feet. __**That**__ terrified Azula- her father was a good enough firebender to hit her anywhere in the throne room. As guards sprang from the shadows, she hurled the still-dazed Zuko at the nearest group, making them spring back and smash into each other; dashing for the massive iron doors, she flung an arc of blue fire in front of her that set another line of soldiers ablaze. She slowed down as she approached the doors; how to open them? And her father dropped down from the throne at the corner of her eyes-_

Yes! _Azula suddenly solved her problem. Spinning around, she lit her feet on fire and planted flaming kicks on three soldiers in quick succession; it didn't quite stop one of them, so she drove her elbow up into his helmet and spat flames right in his face. Gaining some free space, she slowly and carefully cycled her arms, gathering energy in the air that crackled blue-white as it concentrated in her fingers. Coming down from the stage, Ozai did not stop as he saw his daughter preparing lightning; he took one particularly deliberate step forward, shot his arms behind him, gathered his own energy in an __**instant**__, and __**flung**__ it forward-_

_Then, with enormous thanks to Ty Lee's years of friendship, and therefore of _influence_, Azula let her legs slide completely apart. Breaking off her own lightning preparation, she went into a full split and dropped completely to the ground, planting her chin on the floor. She was quick, too- so quick that Ozai's lightning didn't even come close to her, but rather made her hair stand on end as it passed over her head. The lightning bolt hit the throne room doors and blasted them open, yanking them from their upper hinges with a very loud groan of metal. Smirking with her full lips, Azula shifted her weight up and was back on her feet before anyone could blink. Then, turning on her heel, she ran at full speed through the ruined, smoking doors, into the huge antechamber and the rest of the palace beyond it._

"_Stop her! __**STOP HER!!**__" Ozai bellowed, his voice echoing demonically from within the throne room. But Azula turned right and raced for a route of escape- escape from the palace- escape from the home and the life she'd always known-_

"Huah!!"

She lifted her head- her wet, muddy, currently throbbing head. Angrily pulling her hair out of her face, she paused to listen for what had woken her up. She was, of course, cold and slightly damp, but that had ceased to be new. It was possible her dream had roused her, but that would be unusual. Azula rarely woke from dreams, even bad ones.

"Ugh, though I've never had a dream as bad as that one," she muttered to herself, a habit she fell into when she got little sleep. Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Azula was startled to find that dirt was coming off her skin. "**Ugh!**" Repulsed, she scratched around her nose and forehead until the skin was raw.

She'd been on the run now for more than two weeks. Escaping the palace had presented both the greatest and the smallest difficulty: there had been several options she could have taken, such as disguising herself and slipping out a servant's entrance, or bluffing her way past some soldiers, or navigating the miles of underground tunnels beneath the whole palace complex. Ultimately, she'd had to consider expectations: what would her father _expect_ her to do? It had made her remember the virtues he'd extolled right before exposing her: intelligence, propriety, firebending, dedication. There had been no mention of her physical prowess, so perhaps her father did not think highly of it- or perhaps he had never seen it demonstrated. At any rate, he had overlooked it, and so Azula had chosen a means of escape that relied upon it: using the underground passages to reach the outer wall, she'd made sure to come out on the wall that faced the lake on the eastern side of the palace. Then she had plunged into the lake and had swum all the way to the other side. It had left her drenched and exhausted when she had come out- but she had not been too tired to continue on, and that had been half the point. Commandeering an ostrich horse from a bewildered peasant, she had taken a steep road between the high rock towers of the caldera, and then ridden down the shallower slope of the ancient volcano within which the Fire Nation capital was built. Driving the animal hard, she had made it to the port of Gu Lao, the nearest major city to the capital; there, she had quickly shed the trappings of royalty (including, with some reluctance, her crown), and, after examining several ship's manifests, she had created a diversion and snuck aboard one cargo ship bound for the Occupied Territories in the Earth Kingdom.

It had been surprisingly easy to hide: the ship had been short of a full crew, and since her time of the month had passed recently, Azula had had no peculiarly feminine needs to attend to which might have revealed her presence. She had just needed a little food each day and to find new place to sleep every night, both goals easily met. Luck had been with her in the wind, as well. The ship had had a good headwind to supplant its clattering old steam engine, and so within five days she'd dared a glance above deck and had seen the coastline of the Earth Kingdom bleeding rocky brown onto the horizon. She'd waited another half-day, until they were near the mouth of a river, before she had made her move: revealing herself to the surprise of the merchant sailors, she had vaulted overboard and swum with all her might for the shore. Fortunately, none of the grizzled seamen had been firebenders, and she'd been long out of spear or harpoon range by the time they had grasped what had happened. Reaching the shore after her _second_ swim to freedom, she'd spent some indefinite amount of time just lying on the beach, soaking up the warmth of Agni's rays and praying to Him in thanks for His blessings- she had once again defied the odds. Through her own cunning and determination, she was free, and beyond her father's reach.

A week later, freedom had lost some of its novelty. She'd been going to bed hungry nearly every night, though she managed to get enough nourishment to keep from starving outright. Knowing news of her treachery would have to have spread by now, she avoided the colonial cities and garrisons, keeping to the forests and grasslands; if she needed something only obtainable in civilization she would venture into Earth Kingdom villages, which thankfully became more common as she moved further inland.

And at that point in her brief recap of her most recent experiences, Azula laid her head back against the tree, glanced up into the dark blur of leaves, and sighed. _Further inland- towards what? To where?_ She had escaped the Fire Nation with her life and eluded all capture, but that was no ultimate goal- at least, not one she could accept. Her entire life, she had moved and acted and spoke with a purpose, an _end_ in mind. Even as a little girl, though her plans were simpler and her goals far less lofty, she had lived with directness from one task to the next, always holding a clear understanding of what she was working to accomplish at the very front of her mind. But as she was learning, 'fugitive from Fire Nation justice' was not a goal; it was a _life_, one she was not enjoying. And all the other things she'd been working towards for so many years- ruining her brother, taking the throne, bringing the nobility to heel, ruling a globe-spanning empire- had all been put permanently out of reach in a single instant. She could put it no more succinctly than: _I have lost my purpose._

A cold wisp of a breeze wafted some hair into her face; scowling, she blew it away, but she could still feel a tuft of it floating free from the mass on her head. Her dark brown hair seemed to reflect her floating, purposeless existence: since wearing it in a topknot made her far too recognizable, she just left it to fall where it would, which was usually in heavy tresses down onto her shoulders and past the base of her neck. She'd tried fastening it in a topknot further back on her head, and allowing more of her hair to fall freely, but immediately decided against it when she realized it made her look like her _mother._

_I __**hate**__ mother- and father- and Zuzu- and Uncle and the Avatar and grandfather and Mai and the Water Tribe witch and _"**Nnngggghh!!**" growling with boiling rage, Azula dug her nails into her palms, not flinching when their sharpness drew blood; clenching her fists even harder, she let her anger bleed into heat that made her hands steam. She hadn't used rage to fuel her flames in _years_, but her entire universe so completely disgusted her that she found destructive, deadly Fire the only adequate respite. Slicing her arms upward, she flushed her hatred in a blaze of power, and a blast of orange-red flames billowed through the air. It spread and widened as it fell, and when it hit the short shrubs and dry wood of the forest floor it quickly set the area aflame.

The inflammation of her surroundings drew Azula back to her normal self-discipline: a forest fire would not only be dangerous if it got beyond her ability to control, it would draw people to her location. Clamping down hard on her anger, she bounced to her feet, shifted to a stable horse stance, and beckoned the flames with a cycling pull. No longer burning with her anger, the spreading fire turned cold blue as she squashed its will with her own. When the blaze was hers to command, she wiped her hand across in a block that became a hold- and in a nearly straight line the swath of flames leapt off the ground and vanished, leaving behind only low-hanging smoke.

Holding her stance until she felt all the dancing energy either relax or be gathered in herself, Azula then collapsed back to the ground. She couldn't believe her flames had actually turned orange- as if it weren't obvious enough that she was losing control of her life! She was completely exhausted and she didn't have anything to drive towards that would reenergize her. She had nothing. She was hopeless. The throbbing in her head turned to pounding in her temples and then to a burning, stinging feeling at her eyes…

"No," she grunted suddenly, holding the space between her eyes in a pincer made from her thumb and ring finger. She would not cry. She had not cried when her mother had left or her grandfather had died or her brother had been mutilated or her father had tried to kill her. She would not cry now. She shut her eyes tightly until she felt the forming tears dry up.

Opening her eyes again, she caught a glimpse of the sky past the tall trees: the darkness of night was giving way to a very deep blue-gray. Sunrise was an hour away at most. Growling, Azula coughed; it made her pause and wait to see if she would cough again. The last thing she needed was to get sick. Fortunately, it did not happen, and she pushed herself to her feet. She was not going back to sleep, that was certain. She could at least get in a bit of travel time before she had to stop to pray as the sun came up. If she was lucky, she could steal another ostrich horse today, and get the same burst of ground coverage she'd gotten the first time she'd managed such a theft. Either way, she would be out of the Territories by evening- in true Earth Kingdom lands at last, though that didn't mean as much since the fall of Ba Sing Se. Still, it would mean she could stop in towns more frequently. That was a plus, and these days, Azula would take her pluses where she could get them.

_Since the day he'd tasted the lightning, his whole world had been hot. The sun had been a raging fireball, the night air hot and stifling. Flames raced through his veins, and his skin blazed crimson. Beds were like furnaces, and the ground was like a grill. Other people were hot to the touch. Even Appa, who was always a comfort to him, was a huge bloom of heat that he was desperate to escape._

_His brain was boiling, cooking like an egg in a pan, and it melted his reality into flashes of waking, where everything and everyone around him rippled in summer heat, separated by long stretches of burnt blackness. The only time the fires dimmed was when Katara worked to heal him, dousing his fiery skin with her water-cool touch. Then sounds got clearer and sights got sharper, the veil of heat diminished in the soothing peaceful flow. But Katara could not always be with him, could not, even when he whimpered and begged and thrashed. He tried to accept this, to understand, but his mind did not work so well when it was burnt._

_Days and nights, places and people blurred together like melting wax. He wasn't where he'd been before- he was on a bed, somewhere that moved back and forth, though the motion could have been the ripple of the warm air. His eyes were glazed in flame-shades, but even so he thought he noticed lots of red around him._

_Then one day his world bent __**hard**__ to one side, in a way that the shifting heat could not be responsible for. Stirred by the trauma, his need to know, at last, what was happening beyond his senses overcame the oppressive heat that sapped him of strength. He shoved himself from bed, almost toppling over as he bent to grab his shirt from a low table. The world tilted hard again, and he fell against a wall of metal- ah, it felt good, it was so deathly cold. He heard a noise that might have been alive, or was alive in the past; he found its source when he saw his staff lying on the ground, fallen from where it had been propped in a corner. He shuffled to it, his palms burned as he took hold of it, but when he gripped it tight the air __**awoke**__ around him, whispering words of calm and blowing on his skin to make it less hot. With his staff in hand, he did not need to hug a wall, and so he shoved open an iron door and hobbled from the metal room._

_He was in a metal hallway, with metal floors and metal ceilings; it tilted hard to the right, and this time he could hear a rumble far away and deep down. Up above, he heard shouts and cries, though all the voices were muffled in the hot air. He started down the hallway one way, but it led to another hallway going the opposite direction. Swiveling around, he saw that at the opposite end of the hallway was a doorway opening onto a staircase. He felt a powerful urge to see the sky, so he headed for the way that would take him up._

_Climbing the stairs was hard, and made his limbs burn that much more; they felt brittle and fragile, like the bones had been heated and were starting to crack. When he reached the top, he saw several people dash by. He wanted to call out, but his throat was scorched raw, and at any rate they were gone almost as fast as they'd come. He turned his head to the right, the way they had gone; it opened up onto another hallway. The voices overhead were louder and clearer now, and when the world slammed itself sideways he heard other things in the distance creak, crash, and rattle. He looked right and left along the hallway he'd arrived at- and at the left end was another staircase. This one's steps were brightened by slants of white light. The air was flowing down these steps, too. He felt some of his old lightness return, Air helping him stand against the backbreaking press of Fire. He shambled forward with greater speed, though he nearly fell again at one point. At last, he reached the steps._

_He was on the third step up when the white brightness from above was darkened, as a figure appeared on the stairs. It was moving quickly- but it stopped almost instantly. "Aang?!" Katara's voice rang through the hot air. "What are you doing out of bed?!"_

_He wanted to speak, but it was so dry in his throat. He tried to groan out an answer, but he couldn't manage to make his tongue move._

_Katara was clear in his vision as she descended to him, taking his quivering body and pressing her own form close. "It's not safe, Aang- you have to get back below deck! We're under attack!"_

_At that instant, another shift of the world rocked them both against the side of the stairwell. The light from above was blotted out again, this time more completely- the figure standing above was larger than Katara. "Katara wha- is that the Avatar?!"_

"_I don't know what he's doing here, Dad, I'm so-"_

"_No! It's good he's already here. Katara, we're not going to make it out of this attack."_

"_What?!" the older girl cried, clutching him a little tighter._

"_They're flanking us too close for us to outmaneuver them, and we don't have enough firepower between our two ships to win a fight with a whole Fire Navy flotilla!" The deep, grave voice paused, though he could feel the ragged air passing in and out of chapped lips. "I want you to take the Avatar, your brother, and Toph, and get out of here."_

_Katara's whole body flinched against him. "__**NO!**__ I'm not __**leaving**__ you here to die!!"_

"_I don't __**plan**__ on dying! But the rest of us have more options for surviving this if we don't have you kids to worry about, __**especially**__ Aang!"_

_Katara was trembling now. "Da-da…"_

_The blotting figure surged forward, making him dizzy. Through his heat-smeared gaze he thought he saw blue clothing swathed in dark red, and a lined face with brown hair. Katara jerked slightly; a big strong hand had taken her shoulder. "Katara, listen to me! __**More than anything else I want you and your brother to live!!**__"_

_Katara breathed in and out very painfully for a moment. Then her whole body stiffened. "Okay."_

_The hand pulled away. "Hide the Avatar! Don't let anyone see him! __**Go!**__"_

_The figure moved away and white light gleamed over them once more. Katara put her face in front of his; her blue eyes were still cool even when everything else seemed hot to him. "Sorry, Aang," she whispered, before sliding back from him where she sat. He only realized that she, too, was wearing a swath of dark red when she was unfastening it from her collar, and then he jolted in surprise as she lunged at him with it. He was soon covered in the wine-like color, the world becoming even more muffled through softly woven fabric. Wrapping nearly his entire upper body, Katara grabbed him around the shoulders and under the knees and hoisted him up… carrying him as she had just after the lightning._

_He went limp as he felt her move, the world gradually getting more and more muffled. He did notice when she came to a stop. "Time to go, Appa!" His friend growled very close by. What about Momo? A chitter- yes, Momo was here. He sighed._

"_Katara!" Sokka's voice. "You- is that-"_

"_Yeah!" Katara panted. He felt himself being shifted, felt smooth, slender arms change into thicker, harder ones. "Take him! I'm going to mist us up some cover!"_

"_Where's his staff?" Sokka asked._

_There was a __**THRANG!!**__ of rapidly warping metal, and the soft slap he recognized as his glider staff hitting an open palm. "I got it!" Toph._

_She had it. Toph had his staff. Toph was here. Sokka was here. Katara was here. Appa was here. Momo was here. Everyone was here, and he was here. That was enough. That was what he'd waited for, what he'd held the smothering Fire off for so long to be sure of. Now that he knew, he could no longer keep it back, and the blazing heat pushed him down again, sending him back into the ashen dark that had stalked him since he'd known the lightning._ Aang grimaced as he awoke. It was still dark- it wasn't even midnight yet, if the blazing fire at the center of the camp was any indication.

He'd grown so tired of reliving that day, as he'd relived it for the past week now since it happened. What made it worse was that he relived it from the perspective in which he'd experienced it, which meant he was thrown back into the warped, topsy-turvy worldview he'd been in at the time, a consequence of the high fever he'd been suffering from. Fortunately, he'd mostly gotten better in the past few days. He swore that being in the open, moving air had sped his recovery, though Sokka didn't agree. By and large, though, the fever had simply run its course, and he was now eating and sleeping regularly. He still had moments where he felt like his insides were blazing, but even that had died down to the point that Katara's healing abilities were enough to stop it almost as soon as it started.

What hadn't entirely been fixed was his bending, and because of that he still felt very unwell. It pained him to engage in complex airbending, and it was worse for his waterbending and his earthbending- so bad for his waterbending, in fact, that he could scarcely do more than make waves without doubling over in pain. And it didn't seem to be pain Katara could heal. It was like the flow of his chi had been scrambled, and when he tried to bend the quickening flowing force went to places it shouldn't and caused pain there as a result. When he'd described the feeling to Katara, she had said it sounded like what happened to her when Ty Lee disrupted her bending in the times they had fought- except, of course, that Ty Lee's attacks weren't painful unless the acrobat wanted them to be. Fortunately, everyone attacked by Ty Lee eventually had their chi flow return to normal on its own. If what Aang was suffering was anything like that, his bending would recover naturally in time.

Already he was able to do most of his normal airbending maneuvers, where at the start of the week he'd scarcely been able to make an air scooter. Even his attempts at waterbending today had hurt a little less than yesterday, or they'd seemed to. Still… _I feel useless… and weak. Not like the Avatar._

There were voices talking briskly closer to the fire. Withdrawing himself from his own head, Aang realized they'd been talking this whole time; in fact, they were probably what had woken him up. The airbender scowled; it was, of course, Sokka, Katara, and Toph. They were arguing, like they'd been arguing all day and night since the group's unplanned excursion. And it had been about the same thing all the while: "Okay, Sokka," Katara said, crossing her arms, "what _should_ we do?"

The older boy, wearing his normal Water Tribe blues instead of the Fire Nation garb he'd picked up aboard the ship, tried to start speaking a few times, but stopped before any words could come out. Finally, he dropped to the ground and sat cross-legged. "I don't know," he admitted, "but we can't keep doing what we're doing."

"Well we _both_ agree on that," his sister said, her voice tense and harsh. Relations between the two siblings had been uncomfortable since they'd had to separate from their father. "But you haven't come up with _anything_ like a good idea since we started camping out again!"

"What do you want me to do, Katara?!" Sokka snapped. "I haven't come up with a good idea because I don't _have_ any good ideas! Would you like to hear some of the _bad_ ideas I've come up with instead?"

"Anything would be better than hearing you blabber on," Toph muttered. The earthbender was lying on her side facing the fire, one elbow propping her head up.

Sokka glared at Toph. Everyone knew that it was useless to glare at a blind person, but it made him feel a little less annoyed, which was the main point. "Well, we _can't_ keep going on like we're going on," he began, "because the Fire Nation is bound to try looking for us. We _can't_ stay in the Earth Kingdom and hide. We _can't_ fall back to somewhere like… like Kyoshi Island-"

"Especially after what happened at Ba Sing Se," Toph chimed in.

"_Thank you_," Sokka growled through gritted teeth. "We don't have any idea if any of our possible safe spots- like the Southern Air Temple- are still safe. We can't go back to Chameleon Bay-"

"Wait, why not?" Katara cried. "This is the second time you've said we shouldn't go back and find dad- _why not?!_"

"Because the last time we _saw_ dad and Bato and all the others they were _under attack by the Fire Navy_," Sokka growled out.

"Which is exactly why we **should** go back!"

"That would completely defeat the purpose of our **leaving**!" Katara's brother shouted. "Dad said we had to leave to protect Aang _and_ to let his men have more escape options. If we went back and searched for them, the Fire Navy could still be there, and we could _lead_ them right _to_ dad!"

"But what if they're hurt?" Sokka's sister said with a pleading note in her voice. "What if they're trapped and they're running out of provisions and there's no way out?"

"Do you think I haven't thought of **all of that**?!" Sokka bellowed, voice clapping like thunder through the small campground. "Do you think I'm **not** scared of what could have happened to dad?!" Katara shrank back as her brother yelled at her. Sokka caught his sister cringing, and held his breath, forcing himself to calm down. He'd promised his father he'd protect her- again. "Look… I'm… scared, too. I don't know what could have happened to dad and I _want to know._" He stretched out an arm with an open hand, and then clenched his fist firmly. "But we still have to save the world."

"So can we stop worrying about maybe dead fathers and girlfriends now?" Toph interjected snidely. "Cause it's getting pretty old."

Sokka whirled on the earthbender, looking livid. "You know what else is getting old, Toph?!" he snarled. "You acting like a **bitch**!"

"Sokka!" Katara yelled. "What did we agree about saying-"

"No! No, Katara, I'm sorry to break your little rule, but there's no other way to say it: she is a **bitch**!" Sokka crouched down into Toph's face. "I know you've got a hard time with _sympathy_, Toph, but if _worrying about our father_ is **boring** you, could you maybe keep it to yourself?! Maybe?! Instead of letting us know how impatient and _heartless_ you are."

Toph scowled at that. "Not-"

"I mean, I know you don't _get_ it- how could you? You haven't given up _anything_. But try not to let us _know_ how much you don't get it, okay bitch?" Katara sharply inhaled, and Sokka glared at her. "I'm sorry, Katara, but I'm past being sick of her **crap**- yes, her crap." He stood upright and crossed his arms.

Toph's face remained carefully neutral as she got to her feet, taking a moment to dust herself off. She gave Sokka a little smile. "Two things: first, thanks for being the one to break Katara's 'clean language' rule. It was driving me crazy too, but I didn't want to upset Sweetness- not before someone else did, anyway. Second," and suddenly Toph's sightless eyes narrowed, "let's get something straight mother**fucker**." The camp went completely silent all of a sudden. Aang raised his head; he, Katara, and Sokka stared at Toph like she'd grown an extra face. "You can stop the woe-is-me bullshit right now. You think you're the only one who's _lost_ something in this war? You think I haven't lost **anything**?" She jabbed a finger into Sokka's chest. "What do you think's going to happen now that the Earth Kingdom's fallen? There's going to be riots and shit! There are **no major cities** left to keep the provinces in order! That means provinces are going to fight each other and bandit gangs are going to be fucking everywhere! And what happens when the Fire Nation starts to go after the upper class? You think _my parents_ are _safe_?! My dad's taste in guards is _goddamn pathetic_- I should know, I've been sneaking by them since I was _six_! Shit's going to get **bad** real soon- you think my family's safe from any of it?!" She was panting hard now in her anger. "And if you haven't already grasped it yet, I just lost my fucking **country** too! I'm not _from_ the Earth Kingdom anymore because there **is** no Earth Kingdom anymore! I'm a fucking **refugee!** You think I haven't _given anything up_, asshole?! FUCK YOU!!" Toph was fighting back sobs.

Sokka took an unconscious, almost automatic step backwards. Katara, her eyes huge, stretched out her hand. "Toph…"

"Fuck you too, Sugar Queen!!" the blind girl snarled. Katara's hand drew back like it had been bitten. "_Bitching_ doesn't fix jack shit. Doesn't make anything better."

Sokka sat down hard. He was staring down at the ground around the fire. "You're right," he admitted, his voice very flat. "But what do we do?"

Toph sighed tiredly, falling back on her bottom. "The fuck if I know."

"We're moving forward."

The three around the fire sat up straight and looked toward the sudden voice. Aang had risen to his feet. Still a little unsteady on his feet, the Avatar walked into the firelight, the blanket he'd been covered in draped over his shoulders. "I couldn't even tell you were up, Twinkle Toes," Toph said.

Aang smiled grimly. He turned toward Katara. "Katara, Sokka's right. We can't go back, no matter what happened to your dad." The waterbender flinched, but did not say anything. He waited to see if she would speak, then continued: "And he's right that we can't just stay here in the Earth Kingdom and hide. We've got to keep going- I've got to finish what I started."

"What does that mean?" Sokka asked. "For those of us who aren't the Avatar…"

"We know where the invasion force is supposed to meet for the Day of Black Sun, right?" Aang asked.

Sokka nodded. "Well, yeah…"

Aang pounded a fist into an open palm. "Then that's where we go."

"Into the Fire Nation?" Katara gasped.

He nodded. "The Fire Nation is where this is all going to end- where we're going to stop this war once and for all." Aang stared at the fire, feeling its warmth dance across his face. He walked forward, slowly, the heat of the blaze growing as he drew closer to it. He was almost on top of the flames now, and he leaned forward…

"Whoa, Aang!" Katara exclaimed, lunging forward and grabbing him by the waist.

"Hey!" the airbender cried as he was pulled sideways. "Katara!"

"You looked like you were going to fall in!" the girl cried, her blue eyes glistening with worry. "Aang, what's wrong?"

Aang turned his head back toward the fire, its flames flickering in his gray pupils. He stretched out his hand, opening his palm to the blaze. It made his skin hot- like he'd felt from the lightning. "The Day of Black Sun is getting closer… and Sozin's Comet is too. Avatar Roku said that only a full Avatar would be able to beat the Fire Lord. I need to become a full Avatar." He curled the fingers of his outstretched hand. "I have to learn firebending."

"But Aang…" Sokka said gently, "if the invasion goes off without a hitch, the Fire Lord will be powerless when you face him. _Any_ bending would be enough to take him down then."

Aang gazed sternly into the campfire. "Roku said what he said. I've got to trust him- he's been right about everything else so far."

Sokka sighed. "Well far be it from me to argue with the Ghost of Avatars Past. There's just one problem. You know who you'd be learning firebending from?"

Aang was puzzled by this question, and the tone in which it had been asked. "Uhh… well it would be a firebending master, right?"

"Yeah," the older boy continued. "And that's the thing- all the firebending masters? They're the _bad guys_."

"Iroh's not," Toph pointed out.

"Iroh's also _in prison_," Katara pointed out.

"What about Jeong Jeong?" Aang suggested.

"Do you even remember where we were when we met him?" Sokka asked. "Because I sure don't. And besides, he took off when Zhao found his camp; who knows where he is now?"

"He'd probably still be in the Earth Kingdom…" Katara began softly. "But if he was on the run before, he's going to be _really_ hunted now that the Earth Kingdom has fallen. I'm not sure we could find him."

"This all just proves my point," Sokka said. "Trying to find a firebending master for Aang would waste time we don't have. And like I _said_…"

"Sokka, this is something I have to do," the Avatar said, his voice soft, but firm.

"Well figure out a way to _do_ it first, then get back to me," the Water Tribe boy replied. He stared into the fire as he thought, drawing his knees up to his chest. "But that other thing you said might not be a bad idea."

"What?" Toph asked.

"Going on to the starting point for the invasion," Sokka said.

"You want us to go into the Fire Nation?" Katara asked sharply.

"We'll be going there anyway, won't we?" her brother observed. "I'd rather just get it over with. And speaking of _dad_… there's no guarantee we'd find him if we went back to Chameleon Bay." Katara started, but Sokka held up his hand. "And if we _didn't_ find him, that _wouldn't_ mean that something had happened to him. He could have just moved on. So instead of going _back_ to where he _might_ be, why not go _forward_ to the one place we _know_ he's going to be?"

Katara averted her eyes from everyone. Aang's hackles rose as she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. "Well… that _sounds_ good…"

"And we even know the _time_ that dad would be there. If he shows up where _and_ when he said he'd show up, then he's okay, obviously. If he doesn't, then something's gone wrong. And we'll know for _sure_, instead of letting fear or worry make us do something stupid. It's our best bet- to me, anyway."

Toph clapped her hands together, startling the others. "Well, I'm sold! Let's get the fuck outta here!"

Katara felt everyone look at her. Guilt and fear warred on her face, which twisted into a short sequence of pained expressions. At last, she looked across the campfire to Sokka, nodding her head. "All right, Sokka, I'm convinced. I don't like leaving dad behind-"

"We're not-"

"But," Katara held up a hand, "there _is_ no way of knowing that he's okay right now, except to see whether or not he shows up at the invasion's starting point."

Sokka nodded. "It's the best course of action as far as I can see."

Aang scooted away from Katara, granting himself some space to curl back up in the blanket. The four friends sat in silence, mulling over everything that had just been discussed. Aang stretched his hand out towards the fire again, Katara watching him intently. He curled his fingers in the air, trying to stretch himself out to the crackling flames, trying to remember all he'd ever seen and learned from Zuko, Zhao, Roku, Iroh, Jeong Jeong, Azula-

"Agh!" he cried- another current of pain shot down his arm, doubling him over where he sat as he clutched his wrist. His whole arm seemed to burn from the inside out, as if the lightning were fresh and bright in his bones.

"Aang!" Katara was by his side in a second, wrapping his shoulders in her embrace. After holding him for a minute or so as his body tensed, she put her feet under herself and helped the airbender rise to his feet. "Come on, let's put some fresh water over you," she said gently, leading him out of the glowing orange circle of the campfire's light.

Toph's face was morose. It pained her to perceive Aang so crippled; through her senses, she could feel the brokenness of his steps, once so light and full of energy. Trying to ignore how pitiful it was, she cocked her head towards Sokka's general direction. "So, going to the Fire Nation, huh? That's gonna be a trip."

"Yeah," Sokka agreed gently. He was watching his sister minister to Aang in the gloom beyond the fire. She was putting water on his back, over the scar left by his injury at Ba Sing Se; though he felt pain in every part of his body, treating the point of the lightning strike seemed to be the best way to soothe his distress.

"That means we're going to have to fly over water, right?"

"We'll have to cross the ocean, yes," the Water Tribe boy answered. "Tomorrow we'll head southwest, into the Occupied Territories. We'll hit the tip of the Earth Kingdom, stock up on supplies, and then… I think we can hug some of the islands off the coast for a while." He rose and ventured out of the firelight. Rustling through the baggage, he returned clutching a rolled up map, which he unfurled as he sat down again. "There's a long stretch of open water that we'll just have to get across. Appa may have to sleep on the ocean at least one night." There was a great rumble from the darkness beyond the fire; in the distance, many small birds and animals started to screech. "Look, I'm just telling you how it might be!" Sokka called back to the sky bison.

* * *

Zuko is the only character I'm not confident in my ability to write; I feel I haven't wrapped him around my head as completely as I have some of the others.

Part 2 coming up very soon.

* * *


	5. Past Tense, Part 2

As promised, here is the second part of "Past Tense." Think of them less as chapters and more as episodes of the show- in which case, this two-part segment would be a two-part episode.

* * *

Azula had not been able to steal an ostrich horse. Worse still, during her attempt at the theft, she had attracted the attention of some Earth Kingdom soldiers from a nearby garrison, and they had pursued her back into the Territories, driving her to ground in the forest. It had killed her to run, because she could have taken an entire regiment of earthbending warriors if she'd been in top form. However, a week of inadequate food and sleep had left her in questionable condition for a fight. Even more than her physical inadequacy, though, she'd been restrained by her desire to remain undetected. If she'd fought them, she of course would have used her firebending, and her blue flames would have instantly set her apart; even if none of the soldiers had known of the Fire Nation princess and her unique blue firebending, the reports of the oddity would have spread, and it would have drawn Fire Nation soldiers to her trail.

At one point, after dodging a particularly fast-moving boulder, Azula had considered attacking them with orange and red flames. She'd decided against it. Even though she _could_ use the same cooler, lighter fire employed by nearly every other firebender, it didn't mean she wanted to. Moreover, she was wary after her temper tantrum in the woods. It had been years since her firebending had produced orange flames without Azula herself pointedly, consciously choosing to create the inferior fire. She would not stray from the focused blue flames again until her life state had settled back down- otherwise, she could lose them entirely, and the former princess was not entirely confident in her ability to regain them.

Fortunately, she seemed to have evaded the soldiers. She had lost sight of them behind her more than an hour ago, but she'd kept running, breaking from her straight line to head in wild tangents, leaping over clumps of growth on the forest floor to break up her trail, and finally vaulting up an elm tree, splaying herself out across its upper branches to insure her weight was properly distributed. She had been in the tree for a short while- perhaps half an hour at most- listening to the forest and trying to pick out anything disturbing the natural chatter of woodland creatures.

The bark near her legs was suddenly being scrabbled against. Twisting her head around, Azula saw a gecko squirrel clinging to the trunk of the tree, its huge black eyes staring unblinking at her as its big toes clutched the rough bark. Growling, she snorted a blast of smoke at it, sending it scurrying further up the tree with a yelp. That was as close to nature as she had any desire to get. Twisting her torso out of its unnatural bend, she let go of the branches she'd been clutching and let her upper body drop straight down, her hair falling down more than a foot past the top of her head. Grabbing another set of branches, she let her legs' grip on the tree trunk loosen, until they slid down to where she could wedge them onto another set of branches. Repeating these contortions all the way down, she carefully descended.

Dropping to the ground a short while later, Azula crouched in the underbrush for a moment, listening for any sound of human movement through the forest. Satisfied that there was none to be heard, the firebender stood up and dusted off. She noted with annoyance that she'd gotten sap on her pants. Her stomach growled, and Azula clutched at her waist in aggravation. In hindsight, it had been foolish to try to steal the ostrich horse before stealing some food- that crime she _knew_ she could pull off. Now the nearest bit of civilization was off limits for at least a day. She had vehemently decided against foraging, realizing she knew next to nothing about what was edible in this part of the world; there was no sense in poisoning herself by eating the wrong kind of berry or herb. Possibly she could kill something and cook it, but bringing down a jackalope or a hawk-dove would take careful control of her firebending, which she couldn't be sure of given her lack of nutrition. And she might just wind up burning anything she killed and rendering it inedible.

Azula bent her knees and sank back a little, weariness and hunger overwhelming her body. She felt like a rope so tightly wound that it was fraying. It was such a desperate effort to keep her body and spirit from going to pieces that she felt she was bringing on the collapse herself through overstress. The former princess could not relax, of course. Relaxation was death. _Oh, Agni... _the plea lingered unfinished. Azula was not one to ask Agni for things frequently; the Sun had clearly blessed her, so she did not want to waste His time begging for favors she could win for herself with the talents He had given her. Now, though, she was out of ideas and out of plans- at the end of her chosen path with no escapes in sight. Perhaps, alone and desperate, she could at least humble herself before the Flame-Father, and beg… Azula's head lolled back, her golden eyes training up through the gaps in the treetops- she gasped.

The flicker of white fur, the pumping of too many legs, the dark underbelly, the distant curve of horns- it was all unmistakable. She had _chased_ that shape across the landscape for far too long not to recognize it: the Avatar's sky bison. _Why would the bison be flying along the border of the Territories?_ Azula wondered. The shape wheeled to her left and began flying sideways, away from her and out of her line of sight. But as it left her gaze, she thought it became slightly more distinct and larger as well. Perhaps it was landing… but again, why? The Avatar's companions ought to have scattered after their leader's death. Perhaps the Water Tribe children were now taking care of the bison; they had been with the Avatar in New Ozai, so they had likely been traveling with him longer than the young earthbender she'd seen in subsequent encounters. If the waterbending girl and her doltish male companion (they might be siblings, they shared some facial features) _were_ the bison's new keepers, it was possible they were fleeing back to the South Pole, where they had come from (according to Zhao's report to her father). That made sense… but the fall of Ba Sing Se had been almost a month ago. If they were going to leave the Earth Kingdom, it would have made sense to do so sooner, even allowing for some time to hide and throw off pursuit, and further allowing time to jettison the earthbending girl and the former Earth King. The male of the pair, despite being an obvious buffoon, had demonstrated a capacity for strategic thinking; _he_ would have insured they leave sooner than now. Perhaps they were taking part in some kind of resistance movement, with the earthbender still in tow. Maybe they were running messages for some of the generals of the former Earth Kingdom army.

Or maybe…

Azula had realized within days of Ba Sing Se's fall that a being like the Avatar, with demonstrated supernatural powers, could not be _assumed_ dead under any circumstances, even a lightning bolt through the back that had certainly traveled to the heart. She had wanted to get the body right away, which was why it had annoyed her mightily when her uncle and the waterbender had kept her from the prize. On the journey back to the Fire Nation, she had pressed Zuko and Iroh for any reason that the Avatar would not have died from her attack. Iroh, predictably, had said nothing. Zuko had been much more helpful, telling her that, in his considerable experiences with the young airbender, his connection to the Spirit World did not make him any less mortal- his body could be injured, and he could, according to all signs, be killed like any human being. He did admit that the waterbending girl, whom he'd encountered closely when they'd both been imprisoned in the catacombs, had healing abilities. But lightning strikes did horrible damage to people from the inside out; Azula knew that very well. Whatever healing powers the waterbender possessed, she would have had to apply them almost instantly to the young Avatar, and that had clearly not been possible.

Although… Zuko had been hesitant and pensive when she had pressed him on the waterbender, when she had asked him if he was _absolutely sure_ that her healing abilities had the limits Azula had concluded they had. Zuko had admitted that she could not heal scars (that made Azula smirk, Zuzu with a flicker of hope only to see it crushed), and the young revolutionary Long Feng had killed at Lake Laogai, according to reports she'd read, had sustained massive internal injuries that the waterbender had been unable to heal then either. The extreme damage a lightning bolt caused would therefore have to be beyond her powers to repair. Zuko had agreed- but he had been so… _reluctant_ to do so. For all that she had believed him to be telling the truth, there had been evasiveness in some of his answers, such that she had not been completely satisfied. That was why she had credited him with killing the Avatar in the message to her father- just in case he was _not_ dead, Zuzu would get all the blame for failure.

But that had been just in case. She had not been _sure_, but she had thought it _safe_ to assume… but perhaps… was it possible? Azula straightened, correcting her posture and glancing to her left through the trees. The bison had been descending, preparing to land. It would be prudent to investigate, at least- it was a change of circumstances she had not expected, but like all changes, it presented new possibilities for her to explore. Azula turned to her left and headed swiftly through the undergrowth, careful to keep her footsteps quiet.

* * *

After they had landed, Aang had curled up on the soft fur of Appa's tail, still wrapped in his red blanket. Katara was hovering around him, trying to make him more comfortable, and insisting that she did not need to accompany Sokka and Toph to the nearby village to pick up supplies. "They know what to get by now, Aang," she assured him, "and I don't want to leave you alone here. You're still not well."

"Katara, I'm _fine_," the airbender said firmly. "I'm just a little chilly today. And hardly any of my airbending makes me hurt anymore." As if to prove it, he stretched an arm from the blanket and twisted it from the outside in. A cycle of wind swirled between his arm and the bundle of the group's baggage, and with a clatter of wood his staff swung through empty space until it slapped into his open palm. "If something bad happens, I can handle myself. Plus, I've got Appa and Momo with me. You guys can help me take care of the bad guys, can't you?"

Appa raised his head and rumbled. Momo chattered, and with a great leap he flew from the sky bison's head to his tail; the lemur landed on the back of the saddle and jumped down onto Aang's shoulders, where he set about grooming the young Avatar's new head of hair. This made Aang giggle uncontrollably. "Hahahahahaha s-stop it, Mom-m-o hahahahahahaha!" Aang squirmed as the lemur continued to thread his small fingers through the dark brown hair. It was barely thicker than if Aang had just gotten a buzzed haircut, but Aang was so unused to having hair on his head that every sensation involving it made him overreact. "Hahaha! S-seriously, Katara, I'm fine here! You should go!"

Katara looked over her shoulder to where Sokka and Toph were clustered at the edge of the new camp. Sokka had their rucksack slung over his shoulder. As she watched, he also slung the dark green bag he'd bought in Gaoling over his other shoulder. This caused Toph to punch him hard in the bicep, making him yelp loud enough for her to hear across the small clearing. He quickly turned the green bag over to the blind girl, who positioned it around her own shoulders with an enormous smirk. Sokka tenderly rubbed his upper arm. Katara grimaced; in truth, she wasn't entirely comfortable leaving the shopping to Toph and her brother. They tended to forget important things and instead buy things that were really a waste of the group's limited money. "Well… if you can promise me you won't overwork yourself, I guess I can go."

Aang lifted his right arm solemnly. "I swear on the spirit of the Avatar and the names of all Avatars past that I won't do anything more than I can handle. You have my word." _Although we might have different ideas on what I can handle,_ Aang thought as he smiled innocently.

Katara kept her eyes on his for a moment, trying to gauge the honesty of the pledge. At length, she straightened up and nodded. "Okay then. Just try to get some rest, okay?"

"Okay."

She walked away from him, but then stopped and looked toward the sky bison's huge head. "You guys keep an eye on him, all right?" she called. She smiled, and winked. "And if he does anything he said he wouldn't, _tell me_."

Appa twisted his head around to fix an eye on the waterbender. He rumbled, and actually seemed to _nod_.

Slightly surprised, Katara shook herself off and twisted around on her heel. "Bye, Aang! Bye, Appa, bye, Momo!" she called over her shoulder as she hurried off. "Wait up, guys!" she shouted to Sokka and Toph just as they neared the edge of the campsite. The two paused to let her catch up, and then the group of three passed out of the clearing and into the woods.

Aang waited until he was sure they must have walked a decent distance away. Then, he threw off the blanket and stretched out, flinching slightly as he lengthened muscles that had been kept short for more than two weeks. "Just us," he said idly, turning up his chin to look backwards up Appa's tail. "You guys wanna do anything?"

Appa groaned.

Momo chattered, and after a few minutes of sitting on Appa's saddle the lemur hopped back onto Aang's shoulders.

"Oh no you don't!" the airbender exclaimed, sitting up and reaching back; he swatted Momo away just as the lemur was reaching for Aang's hair _again_. Aang huffed; having hair was **weird**! He'd been shaving his head as far back as he could remember. This was all completely new. He was startled at how much warmer it made his head; he'd actually been thankful for his new hair during some particularly cold nights. Of course, his hair also caused his scalp to sweat much more than he was used to, which he'd become annoyed at from the very first time it had happened.

The lemur, being robbed of his most recent pastime, hopped onto Appa's tail next to Aang. He twitched his head from side to side, yellow-hazel eyes scanning the airbender rapidly up and down. Aang met Momo's gaze, then shifted to mimicking the lemur, his gray eyes moving quickly over Momo's small form.

But the quiet of the forest, broken only by snatches of birdsong and animal noises, was more conducive to reflection than to silliness, and at length, the young Avatar found himself examining his thoughts. One thought, in particular, rushed to the front of his mind, the place it had occupied for almost a week now. It filled his dreams and whispered to his waking mind when he had the space to think. _I have to find a firebending master._ Roku had not spoken to him- not as such, not since he had explained the Avatar State. But Aang swore he could feel the spirit of the previous Avatar hovering close by, pressing into him the urgency of the need to begin his new studies. Time was short.

Of course, when he thought about beginning his firebending instruction, all the difficulties of finding a teacher that Sokka and Katara had brought up filled his head as well. Still, they could not deter him from thinking about it- and now, thinking about it with something approaching desperation. The Day of Black Sun was coming. He was going to face the Fire Lord. He needed to learn firebending **soon**. He needed to start **quickly**. Sighing, the young airbender rolled onto his side, looking right at Momo again. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could find a firebending master, would you, Momo?"

Momo twitched his head from side to side, huge ears twisted around and down- then he perked up, and his ears shot up high. With a twitter, the lemur leapt over Aang and jumped off Appa's tail. Webbed wings flapping, Momo soared across the campsite and into the forest beyond. Aang watched him go, puzzled at his sudden departure. No sooner was Momo out of sight, though, than Appa suddenly shifted, rising up onto the front four of his six legs. The sky bison _roared_, making the forest explode with the noises of startled creatures.

"Appa?! What's wrong? What is it, buddy?" Aang hopped off his friend's tail as Appa stood up on his final pair of legs. Appa did not straighten his body out, however- he kept his rump curved slightly towards the forest where Momo had disappeared, and his powerful tail shifted anxiously in that direction. Aang suddenly took up his staff. Appa only kept his horns _and_ tail facing the same direction when he was sure there was danger close by.

A few tense moments passed, as the sky bison and the Avatar faced the forest waiting for something to emerge. Both of them started as the forest loosed a blur of motion- but it was only Momo, flapping rapidly and circling several times around the campsite. He landed on Appa's head, chattering rapidly. The sky bison did not move. Slowly, the forest quieted down again. When it was mostly still, Appa rumbled deeply, making Aang's chest shudder. Slowly, his horns still angled towards the forest, Appa lowered himself to the ground, finally resting his shaggy head once more in the dirt.

Aang relaxed and loosened his grip on his staff. _I guess it left- whatever it was._ Suddenly, he smiled. He had slipped into an airbending stance without even a trace of pain. He really was getting better. It made him restless, and eager to move around. He turned towards Appa and Momo. "You guys do a pretty good job guarding the camp all on your own, you know?"

Appa huffed, making the trees near his head creak. Momo twisted his head.

"You wouldn't mind looking after it while I took a little walk… would you?" Aang said snidely. He winked. Neither animal reacted to this. "Okay, I'll take that as a 'yes'- or a 'no,' I guess."

Aang went to the baggage and rummaged through a few containers. With a note of triumph, he pulled out the wide-brimmed straw hat he'd bought for disguise almost at the beginning of his journey. He placed it on his head and tipped it forward to hide the part of his arrow his hair did not conceal. Picking up his red blanket from the ground, he threw it around his shoulders. He bent his body at the waist, leaning on his staff and making himself appear stooped. He smiled. "Perfect!" With an air of supreme satisfaction, the young airbender left the campsite, heading in the direction Sokka, Katara, and Toph had gone.

* * *

Several branches up a nearby tree, Azula watched the Avatar leave the camp disguised as an old man- or perhaps just a crippled man. So she and Zuko had been right to suspect. He _wasn't_ dead.

It had almost exposed her to get this close. She had approached the clearing until she could see the sky bison's massive form resting on the far side, and resting on its tail, a figure with short, dark brown hair wearing yellow and orange clothes. That had more or less confirmed it, but the former princess had wanted a closer look; she had wanted to be _absolutely certain_. So she had ventured further forward, and eventually climbed up to the bottom branches of a tall tree to gain a higher vantage point. That was when the _lemur_ had appeared. It had streaked by in a blur of brown and white, startling her so thoroughly she'd let out a small squeak. Then the sky bison had roared, and she knew the Avatar's pets were alerted to her presence. Azula had gone absolutely still, shrinking against the trunk of the tree, only for the lemur to drop down on the branch right in front of her.

"Shoo!" she had hissed, only to have the creature tilt its head and chatter at her. She blasted some smoke from her mouth, startling the lemur and sending it flying away with a yelp. The former princess had gone absolutely still- would the Avatar's bison come crashing through the trees? What of the Avatar himself? She had waited. Fortunately, several minutes had passed, and there had been no additional drama, so she had felt it safe to venture a glance back into the Avatar's camp.

Now she knew he was alive. Her first reaction was anger, anger that the scourge of her nation's glorious march toward progress had yet again escaped destruction. It was, of course, the mission of the Avatar to ruin the ambitions of the Fire Nation- everyone knew that. As a princess of the Fire Nation, he was therefore ruining _her_ ambitions…

_Wait… no he isn't._ Azula wasn't _part_ of the Fire Nation anymore, was she? At least, not as such- she still considered herself a princess in all important respects, no matter what her father had decreed. But her father had cast her out, disowned her. She no longer had any part in the Fire Nation's goals, because they were no longer complementary to her own. And her own goals were… Azula's golden eyes glistened with fury. _Revenge_. Never mind the fact that she'd been plotting to usurp his rule; in Azula's eyes, what Ozai had done could be neither understood nor forgiven. He'd branded her a traitor! He'd taken her home and her country from her! For that he had to _die_. But how could she orchestrate his downfall?

The firebender glanced around the tree trunk, peering again into the Avatar's camp; it was now empty save for the bison and the lemur. Perhaps… no, that was impossible. She'd have no grounds for- but then Azula was struck by a thought. She scoured her memory. When she'd first encountered the Avatar, at New Ozai, he'd been accompanied by the two Water Tribe children, one of whom, the girl, was a waterbender. Subsequent encounters had shown her to be a very good waterbender- good enough, under the right circumstances, to fight fairly with Azula herself. During the second meeting, in that collapsing town on the flatlands, the Avatar had had a new companion: a young female earthbender. She was _also_ quite powerful, especially for her age. And when it had come down to actually fighting the Avatar, he'd attacked her with airbending, as well as earthbending, and… she swore she'd seen him use waterbending, though she couldn't think of any particular example of him employing it. What she was quite sure of, though, was that the Avatar had only started using earthbending against her _after_ the young earthbending girl had appeared in his party.

Now Azula delved even further into her memory, reaching back to her childhood, when her _mother_ had still been a part of her life, and her uncle had not yet earned her complete contempt. He would often share wondrous accounts of his travels with Zuko, and with her when she would deign to tolerate his company. Several times he had talked about the history of the Avatars… _What is it? I know Uncle told us once- what is the order? Is it… Air… Fire… no, Water-_ "Water, Earth, Fire, Air," she whispered suddenly, remembering at last.

Water, Earth, Fire, Air- the four elements, listed in the order in which the Avatar learned to bend them. Of course, as Iroh had explained, an Avatar would obviously start with the bending art of the nation he or she had been born into. An Avatar from the Fire Nation, then, would learn firebending first, and then move on to airbending, then waterbending, and lastly earthbending. They would start with their native element, and then move on to the other elements in order, relative to element where they had begun their instruction. So, an Avatar from the Air Nomads would begin with airbending, then learn waterbending, earthbending, and last of all, firebending…

Crouching down, Azula gripped the branch she stood on, and then swung her body down and out, suspending herself from the low-hanging limb. She dropped to the ground, once again crouching in the underbrush for a few seconds to evade any chance detection. She was especially trying to avoid getting ambushed by the lemur again. Satisfied a few seconds later that she was not being observed, the princess rose to her feet. She began to walk through the forest, in the same direction she'd seen the Avatar moving. Azula had a mad idea. It was incredibly risky, and there was no reason to expect success… but it was probably her last, best shot at escaping her aimless and apathetic wandering. Besides, she'd accomplished impossible feats before.

* * *

Katara usually liked shopping with Sokka. She usually liked shopping with Toph. She did _not_ like shopping with Sokka _and_ Toph. "No, we can't afford two dozen chocolate jackalopes! Put them back!"

"But Katara…" Sokka whimpered.

Toph nudged him. "Tell her they're milk chocolate!"

"It's _milk_ chocolate!"

"Milky!" the blind girl added enthusiastically.

Katara clenched her teeth. "Guys, we're here to get things we _need_. Things we _absolutely need_. We don't have the money to spend on candy!"

Sokka shook the package of animal-shaped chocolates back and forth in front of her. She fixed him with the glare she knew he was absolutely terrified of, the one Gran-Gran had taught her when she was nine. It worked as well as it always had: her brother blanched, shifted backwards, and then deflated considerably. "Fine," he sighed, walking the chocolates back to the stand where he'd found them and placing them back on the shelf.

That distraction settled, Katara closed in on one of the fruit stands further down the street of the open market. They hadn't had much fresh fruit lately, which she knew was hard on Aang. Perhaps something sweet and juicy would help him recover the rest of his strength.

"Hey Sweetness!" Toph's excited voice burst through her ears. Turning her head, Katara saw the earthbender draped in a mantle that covered her entire body and then some- it was clearly made for a taller person, and an ocean of fabric pooled around the young girl's feet. It was also a very violent shade of purple. "Is this cool or what? I mean, I have no idea what color it is, but it's the first time I've found something close to my old cape! This is bitching!"

"_Toph_," Katara said, exasperated. She noticed the owner of the stand Toph had taken the cloak from was glaring at the blind girl, clearly aggravated by the playful hijacking of his merchandise. The older girl hustled over to her friend, quickly pulling the mantle off.

"Hey!"

Katara did a very sloppy job of folding the cloak back up, and placed it back on the carpet with the other shawls, capes, and blankets. She smiled as wide as she could. "I'm very sorry," she said sweetly. "Come on, Toph, let's go," Katara said, leading Toph away by the wrist.

"We could have gotten that," Toph insisted, her heavy black bangs falling down her face. "We could use a new blanket at least, since Twinkle Toes has been hogging the best one-"

"_Shhh!_" the waterbender hushed her sharply, pulling her hard until Toph's body was pressed against Katara's. "_Don't mention You-Know-Who!_"

"What?" Toph wondered, puzzled. "Oh, you mean Aa-"

"_Shhh!_" Katara hissed, clapping a hand over Toph's mouth.

Mumbling, Toph drew back from the other girl. "Okay, okay, fine!"

Katara growled; she wasn't sure how much more of this she could take. "Sokka!" she called sharply, drawing her brother away from a wall of posted notices and announcements. "Take Toph around the blacksmith's booth for a bit while I finish up the shopping, okay?"

"Yes! Metal!" the blind girl exclaimed, sounding even younger than she was. "C'mon, Snoozles, hoof it!" She moved swiftly towards Sokka, grabbing his wrist and jerking him along behind her. Sighing contentedly, Katara returned to the fruit stand.

Sokka, for his part, was annoyed that he'd been relegated to keeping Toph busy, _again_. Although he'd been planning to swing by the smithy anyway, so he supposed he wasn't actually being inconvenienced. It didn't mean he wanted to be forced into it. As the earthbender dragged him exuberantly down the street towards the metal- and leatherworkers, he reflected on the things he might actually find it necessary to purchase before he and the others left for the Fire Nation. 'Maps' were his first thought, but of course, if he hadn't found any maps of the Fire Nation in the Spirit Library, what were the odds of finding any in an Earth Kingdom village's marketplace? So he moved on to 'bags'- it might be useful to have extra storage space handy.

Glancing between the buildings on either side as he passed, Sokka glimpsed something that made him dig his heels into the ground. He jerked forward a little as Toph tried to continue pulling, but he forcefully wrested her back. "What?" she snapped.

"Fire Nation!" the older boy replied. Freeing himself from Toph's grip, he took a careful step backwards, leaning backward a little to peek down the alleyway he had just passed. Sure enough, one street over, Fire Nation soldiers were milling through the market, causing no small amount of agitation among the villagers.

"How many?" Toph asked, her body suddenly tense.

"I'm not sure," Sokka answered, "but it looks like a lot. At least half a division, maybe…"

"_Shit!_" Toph hissed. Sokka was inclined to agree.

"We've got to get Katara and go," he said. Now it was he who took Toph's hand, leading her back the way they had come; he barely noticed when she curled her fingers around his.

"Hey!"

The clear voice called from their right. Sokka went rigid. He forced himself to keep walking, and jerked Toph forward when she stopped.

"Hey you!" the same voice cried. "Stop!"

"_Keep walking_," Sokka hissed to Toph. They were hurrying now.

"You two- _stop_! Now!"

The third cry carried an edge to it that had not been present before. The crowd in front of them was thicker now, and with someone calling after them they were starting to draw attention. Sokka realized it might be better to just confront a single soldier rather than run and risk the dangers of a commotion. "Okay, _stop_," he said very quietly to Toph. The two of them halted, and the Water Tribe boy turned around.

As he'd feared, a Fire Nation soldier was making his way towards them, dark red armor clinking as he moved. The solider stopped just in front of them. His gaze lingered briefly on Sokka, then shifted to Toph, and his heavy eyebrows rose. "I was right- I _do_ recognize you…"

Sokka braced himself for combat.

"… You're the Blind Bandit, right?"

_Huh?_

"You bet!" Toph said, stepping forward; she was very surprised, but also thoroughly pleased to find a fan in such unlikely circumstances.

"I knew it!" the soldier said. He was smiling now. "I saw your hairdo in the crowd, and I thought, 'Nah, there's no way,' but it kept bugging me, so I followed you, and- wow, the Blind Bandit!" His excitement only seemed to grow as the seconds passed. "See, a year or so back a couple of my buddies and I were in the army marching on Badoa- Gaoling's on the road, right? So we're camped out one night, and my pal Shin convinces some of us to sneak into the city to have some fun. So we go, and we hear about this thing called 'Earth Rumble'-"

"You were at Earth Rumble Five?" Toph cried giddily. "Congratulations, you saw my best performance!"

"I know!" the soldier exclaimed. "You _owned_ that one guy- what was his name, that guy at the end with the long beard-"

"The Terra Terror!" Toph supplied with glee.

"Yeah, that's right! The Terra Terror! But oh man, not much terror when you were _done_ with him!" The soldier clapped his hands together. "Man, I can't _believe_ I ran into you, _here_ of all places!"

"I know, right?" the blind girl said. "It's always nice to meet a fan. Glad I didn't disappoint you!"

"Right on!" The soldier snapped his fingers. "Hey, uh- I'm still serving with some of those guys. They'll never believe this unless- could I get your autograph?"

Toph winced at him. "Oh, sorry- I mean, I wish I could, but, you know… blind, can't see, can't write…"

"Oh!" the soldier exclaimed. He looked sympathetically at her as well. "I mean- I'm sorry-"

"No, no, it's okay! I mean, it's just…" Toph trailed off. She dipped her head down onto her chest for a moment. Then, her head came up, her sightless eyes wide. "I know! Do you have some paper and ink?"

"Paper…" the solider muttered, digging into his pack. "I've got paper. Ink… hey Han!" he cried. He hustled off to the left, towards another soldier leaning against the wall of a house. They conversed briefly and eagerly, and the other soldier opened his own pack and took out a bottle. The soldier hurried back to Sokka and Toph, clutching the bottle triumphantly. "And I've got ink!"

"Great!" Toph exclaimed. She stretched out her open palm, and the soldier handed her the ink bottle. "Paper too!" she demanded; the soldier complied. Setting the paper on the ground, Toph popped the top off the bottle of ink, put the opening onto her palm, and tipped the bottle upside-down. Ink spilled all over her hand, and she spread the bottle around a little as she coated her palm and fingers in the deep black fluid; spare ink drizzled onto the ground and splattered the paper with stray spots. Satisfied that her hand was coated, Toph slapped it against the paper; holding it in place briefly, she dragged it to the right as she lifted it up. Now, interspersed between blotches of ink, a black handprint was plastered onto the paper; it was smeared slightly, giving it a rather dynamic appearance. Toph took up the piece of paper at its edges and handed it to the soldier. "There ya go!"

"Awesome!" the soldier exclaimed. He took the ink bottle back from her, continuing to stare with delight at the marked paper. "Thanks! Man, the guys are gonna be thrilled!"

"No problem!" Toph said. "See you around!"

"Totally!"

With that, Toph and the soldier turned and went their separate ways. Sokka stood where he'd stood through the whole exchange, mouth dangling open. He hadn't blinked in a while, either.

"Mouth closed, Snoozles!" Toph said, pushing his jaw shut. Taking him by the wrist, she began to pull him away.

They'd walked a few paces before Sokka was able to speak again. "You just… did you…"

"_Always_ treat your fans well, Snoozles," Toph explained, folding her hands easily behind her head. "First rule of fame and fortune."

"Uh…" Sokka muttered, still in shock. "Okay…" He glanced back over his shoulder. The soldier was talking with his compatriot against the wall, excitedly displaying Toph's 'autograph.' _That was… wow, we dodged __**that**__ arrow. I can't believe it._ Putting more energy into his step, he matched Toph's fast walk down the market street-

"_YOU DOLT, THE BLIND BANDIT IS __**WANTED**__ FOR AIDING THE AVATAR!! __**GET THEM!!**_"

"So much for clean getaways!" Sokka yelped, pulling out his machete and boomerang.

Toph turned around. With a sigh, she cycled her arms, sending up pulsing spikes of solid rock that struck a line of soldiers charging out of the nearby alley. "I _hate_ it when I have to hurt my fans…"

* * *

Aang heard the commotion just as he hit the outskirts of the village, and it made him quicken his step, though he still kept it weak to maintain his disguise. _Sounds like a fight!_ he thought, worry surging through his veins. Of course, he knew logically that Katara, Sokka, and Toph could all handle themselves. But it didn't stop him from worrying. He couldn't stand the thought of one of them getting hurt- especially Katara. _She's only here because I insisted that she go…_

He'd only made a bit further into the town when he heard the rumble of multiple feet hitting the earth far behind him. He ducked into a nearby alley, crouching in the shadows; sitting at the corner, he poked his head out cautiously and looked back where he had already come. Four Fire Nation soldiers were tramping swiftly into town; they wore the crested helmets and bone white faceplates that identified them as soldiers who could firebend.

_I can stop them!_ Aang told himself. He was determined; he hadn't been useful in so long, but here and now, at last, he could do something to help his friends. He wasn't sure he was up for a true fight, but if he could catch the soldiers by surprise, he was certain he could take them all out before they could properly counterattack. Aang thought of the various ways he could strike them. It occurred to him that he would probably be best off not using airbending. That would immediately give away that he was the Avatar, something the entire group had been taking pains to conceal; the Fire Nation couldn't realize he was still alive until it was too late. And since there was no source of plentiful water nearby, that meant he'd have to use earthbending. A quick surge of stone pillars, angled to hit the soldiers' heads and chests, would probably be his best bet.

The soldiers were coming closer. Setting his staff aside, the Avatar rose to his feet. He spread his legs wide and sunk into a horse stance, rooting himself in the ground as Toph had taught him. He kept his breathing deep and even, letting strength and energy flow through his body. The seconds stretched painfully on. Aang's head was sweating- stupid hair! Suddenly, the soldiers passed in front of him, and Aang's body burst into motion, stepping forward out of the alley in one big step and sweeping his arms-

"Aggh!" he yelled as a blazing surge of pain shot up his right arm; it quickly traveled down his right side to his leg as well. He fell to his knees, trembling and clutching his agonized limb.

With a clank of armor, the four firebenders surrounded him, feet poised in bending stances. "Trying to play hero, grandpa?" one of them asked, sneering voice echoing through his metal faceplate. "Big mistake…"

Gritting his teeth, Aang brought his head up, determined to appear unbroken. His hat, which had already slipped far back on his head, finally tipped over and tumbled down his back. The airbender realized that his arrow was exposed- but it was too late. One of the other soldiers drew back in surprise. "Hey- you're-"

The air **snapped**, and the soldier didn't finish his sentence. A scraggling line of blinding white pierced him and the man to his left through the sides, lighting up their skeletons deep inside their flesh. Aang was flung back onto his bottom by the raw power churning through the air, and the other two firebenders were flung to the ground and against a wall, respectively.

The two who had been struck by the lightning collapsed, their bodies twitching and shuddering gently. The one knocked against the wall struggled to his feet, but then a splatter of blue flames washed completely over him. He screamed as he was set ablaze, slamming himself back against the wall with his writhing. A short, slender figure in dark colors vaulted forward almost out of nowhere, fists burning blue. It rammed a flaming punch into the burning soldier's faceplate, and he howled again before sputtering and dropping to the ground.

The final soldier had risen entirely to his feet in this time. He looked to person with the blue flames, and took a hesitant step backwards. It was not enough to save him- a blue fireball slammed into his chest, setting him ablaze. Screaming, he turned and ran down the street, arms flailing above his head as his whole body caught on fire. The shorter figure blurred into the middle of the street, spread its arms wide, then _clapped_ its burning hands together. A jet of gleaming blue fire streaked down the dirt road between the buildings, hitting the fleeing, flaming soldier in the back- and then exploding out of his chest. He made no other sound as he dropped to the dirt.

Aang was breathing hard- gasping for air. He had a sour-shock taste in his mouth. It was the same thing he'd tasted, the last thing he'd sensed, when the lightning had come, before he'd fallen into the burning darkness. This… this couldn't be real. Not _her_- not here, not now.

"It wouldn't be so _messy_ if they'd just stay and _take_ it," she muttered. She curled her fingers and the fires in her hands extinguished, smoke curling up from her knuckles and nails. She eyed him from the side, catching his gray pupils with her golden ones. "So it's really true- you _are_ alive." Azula turned toward him, taking a few steps forward; Aang fought the urge to scoot back. "I must say, I'm impressed. Not everyone could survive being struck by lightning. Although…" she looked him up and down, "you clearly weren't entirely unfazed, considering your collapse when you tried to attack."

"Y-you…" the airbender stuttered.

Her lips- ugh, why were they the first things he noticed about her- curled into a smile. "That's right, Avatar… did you miss me?"

Before Aang could say anything else, the ground shuddered. Four great slabs of rock shot from the earth around Azula, angled inward, and then they _slid_ towards her. Pressed tightly, the former princess found herself unable to move. Then the air was filled with the rush of moving water. A swirling current splashed around the base of the rock snare, shot up the stone slabs and rose between the gaps, and _froze_. A coat of thick ice now sealed the stone enclosure- and many sharp, chilled shards were now poised less than an inch from Azula's throat.

As if that weren't enough, a machete blade came around from behind and pressed against her neck. "_**Do. Not. Move.**_"

Azula rolled her eyes. "Thank you _so_ much for that piece of advice. I was prepared to start _dancing_."

"Lovely," Sokka growled. "You're hysterical."

"You'd be surprised," the princess said with a sneer.

Toph snarled deep in her throat. Katara flexed her wrists, and the ice pressed closer to Azula's throat. "What are you doing here, Azula?" the waterbender asked.

Azula continued to smile. She did not look at Katara, who had edged into the front of her vision, or Sokka, who was now at her side pressing the machete to her jugular, or Toph, who was just barely visible behind her. Her golden eyes bored into the Avatar, sprawled on the ground before her. And she spoke only to him. "I'm here to teach you firebending."


	6. The Headband & The Veil

Wow, so much for keeping a reasonable updating schedule. This summer has been busier than I'd anticipated, so I had to write this chapter in fits and starts in between summer classes and hunting for a job.

Additionally, this chapter was hard to write, which is surprising because, at this point, it's the only major chapter that takes its basic plot from an episode of the show. It was actually a lot of work trying to shoehorn Azula into the events of "The Headband" in a way that made her an organic part of the story. I'm a bit worried that this chapter doesn't flow as well as some of the previous ones or some of the upcoming ones I have planned, but I've worked it over a few times, and I think I've smoothed it out as best I can. Honestly, I couldn't think of any better way to get Team Avatar into their Fire Nation clothes than what Mike and Bryan had already come up with, so I'm just going to put on my driving gloves and roll with it. Enjoy "The Headband and the Veil."

* * *

The day dawned gray and cool for Sokka, with the wind whipping a chill over his face. Realizing he was both cold and wet, Sokka sat up swiftly, prepared to abandon the boat that was obviously leaking and try to swim for the nearest ice flow before his limbs froze. It was only when his hands slapped against rough leather that he came fully to his senses. He wasn't in the ocean; he was in the _sky_- he was inside Appa's saddle. Then he remembered.

The group had spent two nights on the relatively calm waters of the ocean. Whether by luck or due to the particular creatures that lived in this part of the world, their slumber had never been disturbed by some kind of sea monster. After the end of the second night, however, Aang declared that Appa no longer wanted to sleep floating in salt water. They decided to fly straight through the following night and complete their journey in one final push. Now it was morning- early morning, admittedly, but the sun was up enough to see by. Sokka crawled out of his blanket and across the saddle. Katara and Toph were still asleep. Reaching the saddle's rim, Sokka peered over the edge. Water churned dark blue far below him, between thick, rolling clouds. Abruptly, a rock appeared in the surf, its ragged black lines jarring against the swirling ocean. Sokka's heart leapt into his throat. Rocks appearing in the ocean meant it was getting shallower, which meant…

"So _you're_ finally up," Azula said from somewhere nearby. It seemed to be in front of him. Glancing forward, Sokka drew back with a shout as he saw Azula hanging _out_ of the saddle. The former princess was gripping the saddle's edge with one sharp-nailed hand, while her feet pushed against Appa's shaggy flank, leaving most of her body in the open air. She was looking back at him out of the corner of one golden eye. "Did you plan on sleeping until we landed?"

"What- what the-" the Water Tribe boy stuttered. "What happened to hating to fly?"

Azula merely rolled her eyes. Positioning her feet for more stability, she inclined her body further forward, flinching slightly from cold dampness as the bison flew through a wisp of cloud. The wind whipped her hair back. Peering out through the gray-soaked sky, she scanned murky horizon. There- the clouds gapped and Azula saw dark rock spreading out, parting the sea and sky. She gestured forward with her free hand. "Avatar, turn right and head down the shore! We should find a harbor soon where we can land!"

"All right!" Aang said from his seat on Appa's head. The young Avatar fidgeted as he gripped the reins tightly, staring at the approaching coastline with no small amount of dread. _There it is… the Fire Nation._ His stomach muscles tightened. _This is where everything I've done my entire life has been leading._ "Appa, yip yip!" he cried, forcing himself to concentrate. He flicked the reins in his hands, and the sky bison roared while he veered to the right.

Momo, who had been curled up at the front of the saddle, went from sleeping to waking in an instant. He chirped furiously and scampered to Katara, leaping up onto her chest. Katara awoke with a shriek, which in turn woke up Toph. The young earthbender raised clenched fists as she sat up. "Just stand still and I'll take you o- wait, what?"

"And good morning to you too," Sokka remarked.

Toph blinked sleep out of her sightless eyes. She yawned, scratched her chest, and cracked her knuckles. "I can't feel anything, are we still on Appa?"

"Yeah, but not for long," Aang called back. "We're landing soon."

"We're here?" Katara asked. Pulling off her blanket, she crawled to the front of the saddle and looked out. They were now flying along the jagged black coastline, and Katara could see the faint outline of mountains far away in the clouded sky. They _were_ here. "The Fire Nation…" she whispered.

"It's magnificent, isn't it?"

The voice came from just below her. Katara looked down. Azula was hanging out of the saddle right beneath her. The waterbender gasped. "What are you doing?! Get back in here!"

The firebender flexed the arm holding onto the saddle. "It's too hard to see on top of Appa. He takes up too much space."

"Just- oh, _fine_!" Katara said irately. What did she care? The younger girl could risk her neck however much she wished.

Appa slowly descended, gradually leaving behind the clouds of the early morning ocean. The sky was a shining gold as it was lit by the rising sun, which gleamed brilliantly in its ascent. Azula felt particularly reverent at Agni's glory, which in turn amplified her displeasure that she had not been able to pray for the last two mornings. Aang stood up, leapt backwards and landed in the saddle not far from her. "I'm going to whip us up some cover. Azula, you'd better get inside."

Drawing in a slow breath, the former princess bent her knees and pushed off, hard, from Appa's flank. She sailed up through the air, twisting around as her hand dragged against the saddle's rough leather lip. When she'd arced back within the saddle's interior, she let go, and landed on her left heel, which with some rapid footwork allowed her to descent gracefully into a cross-legged seat.

Katara twitched an eyebrow. "Showoff."

The little cloud drifted close above the surface of the water, casting a shadow as it passed. It flew over rough black rocks, their edges foaming white as they defied the pounding surf. From within, there came a sneeze.

"We're _supposed_ to be keeping quiet!"

"Up yours, Bitchbender!"

"Would you two keep it down?!"

Finally, the cloud crossed a shallow stretch of water, and passed onto the sandy shore, just before the mouth of a dark cave. There it stopped, growling coming from within. The sea breezes were suddenly sucked into the cloud then just as suddenly _blown_ out, with a burst of rapid air, and the cloud cover swirled away, revealing Appa hovering just above the ground, his passengers hunkered low within the saddle. Swishing his six feet, the sky bison lowered himself onto the sand.

Sokka, burgundy cloak swirling around him, was the first to rise up. "Nice job with the cloud cover, Aang, but next time, let's try to make sure we keep _quiet_, too," he said, glaring daggers at Toph and Azula.

The young earthbender would have none of it. "Oh yeah, we wouldn't want the _birds_ to overhear our super-secret plans."

Dropping down from the saddle, Sokka threw himself to the ground, rolling forward and then slamming his back against a rock on the shore. "We're in enemy territory now!" he growled. Seeing some puffer-swallows atop the rock, his hands snapped up, fingers pointing. "Those are _enemy birds_." His expression became terribly serious, which did not seem to faze the puffer-swallows. One of them hopped onto his head.

Azula rolled her eyes. "Speaking as someone with considerable insight into the Fire Nation war effort, I can assure you none of the wildlife is trained in espionage."  
Sokka fixed her with a stare. Then he blinked, and his hands pointed to the puffer-swallows again. "_Enemy birds!_"

The five of them ventured into the cave; it had high ceilings, and stretched far back into the rock. Sokka stayed in the lead, bending low as he walked, his machete clutched tightly in his hand. All of the others remained upright. The Water Tribe boy got down on all fours and started sniffing the earth. Momo landed next to him and began to sniff as well. "Um, Sokka…" Katara began gently.

He held up a hand for silence, hissing as he did. Katara silenced herself, and no one said anything more as Sokka sniffed the ground for another minute. Then, he rose up onto his knees. "Okay, I think this place is clear."

Shifting one foot, Toph took the measure of the space around her. She pointed into the dark depths of the cave. "There's another entrance to the cave, through a tunnel; it opens onto the left side of the ridge."

"Could be dangerous," Sokka muttered. "Though it could also be a good escape route…"

"Wait, we're not going to _stay_ here, are we?" said Katara.

Her brother stood up. "Uh, yeah- this is how we'll be living until the invasion starts."

"I am _not_ staying in a _cave_," Azula growled.

"Well then you're free to sleep outside."

"Sokka," Katara interjected before an argument broke out, "we don't need to become cave people. What we _need_," she grabbed the midline of her dress, "are some new clothes."

"That's a great idea," Aang said. "If we get Fire Nation disguises, we can move around more freely. Blending in is better than hiding out."

"Besides, even if we stoop to living in caves," Azula said with a slight grimace, "it would be very difficult for us to avoid detection entirely, and if we were found, it would be instantly obvious that the Avatar is still alive. We would lose the advantage of surprise. Better to conceal him and hide in plain sight."

"Me? What about you?" Aang asked. "The Fire Lord's still _looking_ for you."

"You're both right," Katara said. "They _are_ right, Sokka. We can't risk someone finding us and seeing that we're obviously enemies. Aang and Azula need disguises, and we might as well get some too. And we won't have to live in caves."

Sokka mulled it over, glancing at his sister and his friends (and Azula). Finally, he sighed. "I guess…"

"It'll be better than sleeping on rock and eating cave hoppers the whole time," Toph deadpanned as she smashed the cave wall with a fist. Dozens of ghostly white insects burst from the wall and floor, chirping low as they hopped away. Momo caught one and began to devour it.

They were creeping through the hills beyond the shore soon afterward, all senses alert for any sign of danger. Appa had been left behind at the cave, and their progress was acceptably quiet. Sokka was actually good at moving silently when he didn't tense up, and so was Katara; they had both grown up stalking game in the frozen drifts of the South Pole. Aang's footsteps were impossibly light. Azula had been schooled in stealth by Mai. Even Toph, normally quite loud, kept silent now. Momo didn't even fly, scampering softly forward between their feet.

Sokka's mind tended to race when he was being sneaky, and he was worrying with gusto now. He'd seen the wisdom of getting disguises easily enough. What unsettled him was the brief exchange between Aang and Azula, the tit-for-tat assertion that one of them was more in danger of discovery than the other. It had made him realize just how high profile some of his companions were. _We're going to have to sneak around and lay low, even if we can blend in,_ he thought. _And we've got the Avatar and the Fire Nation princess with us._ Azula was his greater worry; Aang had gone undercover with him before. The former princess had a tendency to assert herself inconveniently, and unlike Aang, the Fire Lord didn't think she was dead. _At least she's smart, though._ Azula was certainly capable of comprehending the need to lay low, but would her ego permit it?

Seeing some smoke rising past a nearby hill, Sokka held up his hand. The four benders behind him halted, and Sokka motioned towards the smoke. After affirmative glances at Aang, Katara, Toph, and Azula, he started forward, crouching lower than ever. They eventually peeked over a low ridge, down onto a tilled field in front of a house. Clotheslines were stretched across every row of the field, and numerous articles of clothing were hung out to dry. Most of them were some shade of red. Katara found herself intrigued in a very trivial way. _I've never worn red before,_ she thought.

Aang looked at their potential disguises with dismay. They'd have to steal them, of course. "I don't know," he murmured. "These clothes belong to someone-"

"I call the silk robe!" Katara shouted, vaulting over the ridge and sprinting toward the hanging clothes.

Aang quickly got over his reluctance. "Oh well… then I call the uniform!"

The five of them went swiftly through the rows of clothes, hunting eagerly for something that would look normal, but also caught their fancy. Sokka's eye was caught by a cotton shirt and some loose pants. Toph put her hand to the clothesline and plucked it like a bowstring, letting her perceive the clothes in greater detail; she sensed a short top and a wrap skirt, and smiled. Katara had snapped up that silk robe, and added a top to it. Aang took the uniform he had seen.

Meanwhile, Azula searched the hanging clothes more critically. None of the items were nearly as fine as she was used to. Of course, she'd been wearing coarse fabrics since she'd escaped the Fire Nation. Up to now, however, she'd excused it by reasoning that she was in foreign lands and of course had to disguise her royal status. Today, she was in the Fire Nation- her home country. She ought to be wearing the finest silks, or if she preferred, the best leather armor. She would have to dress as a commoner in the land where she had been royalty. _Disgusting,_ she grimaced as she ran a rough shirt through her fingertips. _Another indignity to pile on top of all the rest I've suffered. Father, I'll make sure I convince the Avatar to kill you __**slowly**__._

"Hey, girl, get a move on!" Sokka cried. He and the others were already retreating back behind the ridge. Shaking out her head, the firebender grabbed a high-collared red shirt and some loose pants.

Their disguises in hand, the five travelers wasted no time changing clothes. Katara and Azula went behind different boulders to change. Toph disrobed right alongside Aang and Sokka; the two boys desperately tried to prevent themselves from _seeing_ anything. Though Sokka found himself wondering, _Is there anything __**to**__ see- NO NO BAD!!_ He hit his head hard with his fist to rid himself of the thought.

Aang, Sokka, and Toph were dressed before the older girls. Aang surveyed his uniform, pleased with its fit and happy that the sleeves concealed nearly all of his arm tattoos. He'd also taken a cloth band hanging nearby, and now he wrapped it around his forehead, tying it in the back. "Tada!" he exclaimed. "See? Normal kid!"

"Nice," Sokka commented, pulling his hair together higher and straighter than its normal wolf's tail; when he tied it again, it was in a topknot.

Buckling up a pair of sandals, Toph wriggled her feet. "I should probably wear shoes… but they make it hard for me to see." Deliberating for a few minutes, the blind girl finally grabbed the top of her right sandal and pulled, pushing her foot hard against the bottom. After a few moments of pressure, the sole of the sandal popped off, revealing her bare foot. "Perfect!" she said brightly, doing the same to the other sandal. "Finally, practical shoes for the modern earthbender."

Azula came out from behind her boulder. "I suppose this…"

Katara emerged at almost the same moment. "So Aang," she asked gently, "how do I look?"

The airbender's eyes bulged. Katara looked… quite striking. She'd done her hair up in a topknot, and the rest of it was left free, streaming in waves down her back. Aang found himself stammering. "You're… you… you look great!" he finally burst out. Katara smiled warmly at him.

Azula appraised the waterbender with a far more critical eye. "The necklace will have to go," she said.

Katara's hand went to her neck, briefly afraid that Azula would steal her mother's necklace again. She had never quite gotten over it. The former princess had a point, though: the blue betrothal necklace was obviously Water Tribe. "I guess you're right."

Azula smiled smugly. She turned to Aang. "Good, you've hidden your tattoos," she observed, nodding toward his headband.

"And now we've got to do something to hide _you_," Sokka said.

"What?"

"Come on, you don't look any different at all! And _everyone_ knows what you look like here!"

Azula had put on her new shirt and pants; since she'd been wearing Fire Nation shoes the entire time, she had not changed those. The firebender had done nothing, however, to change or disguise her face. She'd even kept her usual hairstyle. As the other four stared at her, Azula narrowed her eyes; her shoulders straightened in defiance.

Katara looked at the girl from the side. "Azula, Sokka's right; you look exactly the same. You could at least change your hair a little-"

"Are you presuming to tell me how to dress in my own country?" Azula snapped- sounding surprisingly defensive.

"Look," Sokka said, "you've got to do something to change your face…"

"Why? None of you have!" Azula growled. Katara made a movement towards her, and Azula flinched away.

"None of _us_ have our picture all over the Fire Nation," Sokka pointed out. "Look, Aang covered up his arrow, and he's not much to look at without it."

"Yeah," Aang agreed. Then Sokka's words fully sunk in. "Hey!"

"But you're _Princess Azula_. _Everybody_ knows what your face looks like." Sokka crossed his arms. "You're going to have to hide it, or this isn't going to work." Azula glowered at him. She did not speak, however- the Water Tribe boy's argument was sound. She hated to admit it, but to deny the logic was folly.

"You guys wanna disguise Bitchbender?" Toph asked. She was sitting casually on a rock, her sightless eyes closed. "I know what'll work."

Aang, Sokka, Azula, and Katara stared at her. All of them were wondering how a blind person could advise them on how to change someone's appearance. Katara couldn't help but be curious about the answer. "Um… okay, Toph, how should we do it?"

Toph laughed. She opened her eyes, fixing them with a stare that saw nothing at all. She smiled smugly. "It's easy," she said. "Cover her lips."

The four others _twitched_. Azula seemed to suddenly stand up straighter, her face tightening. Aang, Katara, and Sokka turned their heads toward the former princess, looking at her face- specifically, at her lips. Azula's golden eyes blazed fiercely back at them. "What?!" she hissed.

"Look, I've said before that I can't feel details on someone's face without focusing, right?" Toph continued. "Most of the time, people's faces are just fuzzy. But my feet can pick up those lips of hers without _any_ extra work. And if they're that noticeable to my earthbending senses, I figure they've gotta be pretty damn obvious to people who can actually see them. So if you want to keep people from recognizing her, you might start by covering them up."

The two Water Tribe siblings and the Avatar stared again at Azula. Toph was right. None of them had ever really stopped to consider it before, but the firebender's lips really were unusually large and full, especially for someone her age. Also, they were a rich shade of red all the time. Sokka raised his hand and turned it sideways, putting it out in front of him to cover up the lower half of Azula's face in his vision. He squinted, considering it carefully. "Maybe…"

"There is nothing wrong with my lips!" Azula snapped.

"We're… not saying there _is_," Katara began haltingly, her dislike of Azula grappling with her desire to have her cooperation.

"Are you kidding? They're huge!" Toph countered. Sokka casually stomped on her foot. The earthbender's eyes bulged. "Mother**fucker!!**" she yelped, collapsing into a crouch and clutching the injured foot. She grumbled nasty expletives under her breath for the next few minutes.

"Look, your lips are noticeable whether you like it or not," Sokka said bluntly. "Not that that's a bad thing, I mean you… it's not bad at all. But the thing is, if we _hide_ your lips, and maybe do something with your hair, then no one will recognize you. There'll be less danger of us getting caught- and you'll get to move around freely like the rest of us. Of course," he gave a roundabout twist of his hand, "you could always just stay with Appa the whole time. We could probably dig you some sort of burrow to hide in while we all go- **Owww**!!"

Azula snatched his wrist and twisted it around, jerking his entire body downward as she controlled him from the joint. Her golden eyes bored into him, flickering across the other three as well in rapid succession. "_Fine_," she growled in a low voice. "You've made your point. I'll _do_ it. Just _stop talking_."

She released him, and Sokka vaulted back. He clutched his wrist tenderly. When he'd moved next to Toph, the blind girl slammed her heel down onto his foot. "Ow! Hey!" he cried as he jumped back still further.

"Yeah, how much fun is it for you, fucker?" Toph hissed.

It was one of those moments that made Azula wonder how she'd fallen in with these children. Well, she knew the answer to that question, but she still marveled that she'd been desperate enough for it to come to this. _Oh well, I can only make use of the tools I've got on hand._ Azula cleared her throat loudly enough to stop Toph and Sokka from bickering. "So," she said, injecting a note of curiosity into her smooth voice, "what did you have in mind?" The four others stared blankly at her. Azula sighed. "At this point, I shouldn't be surprised…"

"I saw some more smoke coming from over that way," Aang said, pointing off to his far left. "We can look there. Maybe they have something you could use."

The building sending up the smoke was much larger than the house from which they'd stolen their other clothes. There were clothes drying outside this structure as well, many more than at their previous location. Unlike the small house, which had presented them with a variety of garments to choose from, most of the clothes hanging here were of the same style: long, flowing things in shades of either deep pink or dark red. Sneaking in between the hanging clothes, Azula was growing steadily unimpressed. Of course, she hadn't seen the urgent need to cover up her lips from the beginning. They weren't _that_ noticeable. It really wasn't as big a deal as the earthbender and the Water Tribe boy had made it out to be. And if they were making her cover her lips, why didn't they make the Avatar put a hat on those enormous ears of his? Azula sneered nastily. Yes, compared to those things, her lips were practically tiny.

"Oh _wow_!" Sokka's voice came from the row to her left. Ducking under a barricade of billowing fabric, Azula saw him clutching something in his hands. It was colored a rich ruby red. It was also considerably smaller than everything else that was hanging on the clotheslines.

"Sokka, what is it?" Katara asked as she joined them, Aang and Toph close behind.

Her brother grinned. "Well… just look," he said. Sokka stretched the thing out between his two hands for all of them to see. It was slightly larger than it had first seemed, but still rather small. It was thin, and when Sokka stretched it far enough it became slightly transparent. "I mean, it's _perfect_."

Katara wasn't quite catching on. "So… what is it, exactly?"

"It's a _veil_." Azula scrutinized the object with a critical eye. She glanced up at Sokka, who was grinning. Grinning like an idiot. Well, he was an idiot, so the grin was perfectly at home on his face, she thought. The former princess raised an eyebrow. "This thing?"

"It's better than I thought we'd find," Sokka said. "I figured the best we could do was a scarf or something, but _this_… You can wear this, right? No problem."

"What's a veil?" Toph asked.

"Well, it's a kind of thin cloth you wear around the lower half of your face… or I guess that's how it works," Katara said. "Honestly, I've never seen one before."

"I have," Aang said. "Actually, right here in the Fire Nation- they were really popular a hundred years ago." He flashed a brilliant smile at Azula. "See, you'll be totally fashionable!"

"According to the heights of fashion a century ago, yes," growled the firebender. But honestly, they weren't going to be satisfied until she'd _covered her lips_- ugh. If it was something she had to do, why not take what was almost certain to be the least painful option to that end? A veil wouldn't be as hot and obstructive as a scarf or a hood. The more she thought about it, the more Azula was inclined to agree with Sokka. This really was better than she could have hoped to find. She sighed. "All right, give it to me."

Sokka handed the veil to her. Just as she was reaching around her head to tie it on, the Water Tribe boy snapped his fingers. "Hey! Katara, do you think you could do something with her hair? Maybe make it a little longer…"

"You want to mess with my hair, too?" Azula snarled.

"I want to make you as hard to recognize as _possible_," Sokka replied. "Katara?"

Sokka's sister bit her lip, not at all inclined to personally extend a helping hand to Azula. The waterbender had so far avoided close contact with the firebender. _It's all to help Aang,_ she thought grimly. So Katara forced herself to smile. "All right," she said, turning around and walking out of the rows of hanging garments. "Come on," she called over her shoulder. Azula followed the Water Tribe girl noiselessly, passing out of the clotheslines and stopping near an outcropping of rock where Katara had knelt on the ground. The older of them fixed the younger with a piercing glare. "All right," Katara muttered, "let's get this over with."

Azula smirked. "Oh, you don't enjoy spending time with me, waterbender?"

"My name is Katara."

"I know that," Azula continued, kneeling down near Katara. "I just didn't think you wanted us on a first name basis. You've said as much with your actions for the past two weeks."

"So that's my fault- all my fault?" Katara asked.

The firebender shrugged. She drummed her nails against one thigh. "I know our associations in the past have been slightly… awkward."

_YOU SHOT MY FRIEND IN THE BACK WITH LIGHTNING,_ Katara's mind screamed. She tensed with sudden rage. The girl who, for her young age, had probably done more harm to the world than anyone else, and who had caused Katara more grief than any other single person- even Jet, even Zuko- was sitting across from her, and Katara was supposed to smile and nod about it. It was insane! She wanted to make an ice dagger and slit the firebender's throat! She could do it, too. Azula was so close. Her water skin was slung over her shoulder. _Everyone hates her,_ Katara thought, _no one would miss her. Not even Aang…_ When she thought of Aang, however, she could not stop herself from picturing the airbender with a look of horror on his face. The look was directed at her, Katara, her right arm and her entire front covered in blood. In her mind, she reached for him, and he jerked away, cringing from her bloody touch. The fantasy collapsed; Katara returned to herself, suppressing a shiver. _I can't_, she thought. _Killing her like that… I can't murder someone; not even her._ The fact that she could even contemplate such an act disturbed Katara greatly. When had she become so ruthless? "Just…" Katara began uneasily. "Look, you can call me Katara, Azula." The waterbender smiled as resolutely as she could. "We can at least be polite to each other, right?"

Azula pursed her lips. "Yes, if nothing else. Now I suppose I have to let you mess up my hair." Reaching back, the firebender tugged away the band holding her topknot in place. She shook her head, causing her dark brown hair to flow down her back and over her shoulders. "So let's get it over with."

Katara made her way around to Azula's back. She was surprised at the sheer volume of the former princess' hair. "Huh."

"What is it?"

"Oh… it's longer than I thought it would be."

"Did you expect it to be chopped short in some military style?" the firebender asked. "Give me more credit than that- I am a princess, after all."

Katara ran the other girl's hair through her hands a few times, gauging its weight and thickness. She slowly began to arrange it, taking her time, gathering it up in topknots of varying heights and angles. Azula could not help but be slightly soothed by the sensation. At length, Katara fastened Azula's hair with the band she had been using before, and removed her hands. "There," said the waterbender. She uncorked her water skin and drew out a stream of water, which she gathered into a floating sheet and _froze_ with a twitch of her fingers. She held the makeshift mirror out in front of Azula. "See what you think."

Azula took the icy mirror in one hand as the other one went to the side of her head. It was an interesting look. Katara had kept the two tresses that Azula let fall in front of her ears in her old hairstyle, but they were longer now. Everything was longer, and looser, too; her hair fell down to her shoulders, where it seemed to curl in on itself, making the edge of her hairline very round and curved. Her topknot was wider and sat further back on her head. Azula was relieved: she didn't look like her _mother_ after all. This hairstyle was much shorter and more controlled than that. Yet it was sufficiently different from her usual look. Azula shifted the mirror over her shoulder with her fingertips. "It'll do."

Katara took the mirror back, melted it, and sluiced the water back into her water skin. "Now for the veil," she said. She was about to hand it to Azula when the former princess gently inclined her head. Katara balked when she realized Azula wanted her to put it on for her. She wasn't a servant! But after briefly resisting, the Water Tribe girl concluded that it wasn't worth making a fuss over. Heavily irritated, she sighed, but lifted the thin fabric around Azula's head, placing it over her nose, and tied it firmly behind her head. At least Azula didn't complain about the tugging on her hair. When Katara removed her hands, the firebender caressed the thin gauze covering her mouth and jaw.

"Hmm… I suppose this is good enough," Azula finally said.

_You're welcome_, Katara thought. Of course, the lack of thanks shouldn't have surprised her.

Toph was sitting on a stool of rock when Katara and Azula turned around. Her feet were pressed into the ground at the heels, and as the older girls approached her, she circled them in the dirt, pushing down hard. Her chin was planted against her chest. "Interesting hairdo, Bitchbender," she remarked.

It surprised Azula, until she reexamined the placement of the earthbender's feet. _She must be focusing her senses,_ Azula thought, _to perceive me in greater detail._ Her mind was briefly daunted by the possible extent of Toph's earthbending 'sight,' though she'd also observed its limitations. Next to Azula, Katara just smiled at her friend. "Toph, I could redo your hair, if you want."

"Nah," said Toph, hopping up from her seat. "And how's the veil working out?"

Katara glanced at the firebender. Azula's lips were sufficiently obscured, and as Toph had predicted, with those hidden Azula wasn't nearly as distinctive. "Not bad," she answered.

"It's a sufficient disguise," Azula said, tugging at the bottom. "Not to mention preserving my modesty."

"What?" remarked Katara.

"This is a chastity veil," Azula clarified. "I didn't notice before, but the fringe at the sides identifies it clearly."

"They have _chastity_ veils here?" the waterbender said incredulously.

"Not anymore, really," said the former princess. "At least, I've never seen anyone actually wear one before; I've just seen the ones in the royal archive. This could be some kind of family heirloom for special occasions."

"Really?" Katara asked. She suddenly felt guilty. "Maybe we shouldn't have stolen-"

"What's chastity?" Toph asked.

Katara and Azula whipped their heads around. They stared at the blind girl in front of them, each succeeding moment bringing exponentially greater awkwardness. Katara stammered; even Azula, who had little qualms about being blunt, felt embarrassed, her cheeks going slightly pink. The waterbender was the first to take the plunge. "Well… well, Toph, chastity… it's where there are certain things… See, people, adults, do things… together. When… I mean, if you're a girl, and there's a guy you like…"

"It's a vow of purity," Azula interjected.

"Yeah! That's right, purity," Katara stammered hastily. "Because… you can use your body for all sorts of things- not that you shouldn't! But sometimes… when you're young… You shouldn't _get with_ someone just… because, I mean…"

Toph cocked her head to one side, utterly perplexed. Then, her dark eyebrows shot up. "Oh, I get it!" she exclaimed. "It means you've never fucked anyone, right?"

The two older girls stood frozen in shock for a moment. "Er, right," Katara admitted lamely, "yeah, it means you've never… yeah." Toph smiled, nodded, and turned around, walking back toward the boys. When she was far enough away, Katara sighed, shoulders sagging.

Azula raised an eyebrow. "She has an… interesting vocabulary, doesn't she?"

Katara sighed again. "And here I was hoping she didn't actually know what that word _meant_."

They began to follow Toph back to Aang and Sokka. "So, what was she doing before you found her, again?" Azula asked.

"Professional earthbending circuit," Katara answered. "She'd been there since she was eight."

Azula nodded. "That explains a lot."

"I guess it does."

Sokka proclaimed Azula's disguise suitable, so after checking back at the cave to make sure Appa was all right, the five of them hiked through the hills until they reached the small city they'd seen on their way in, nestled in the cliffs just inland from the beach. Momo would not stay behind, so Aang ultimately had to hide him in his new jacket.

At a stand just outside the city gate, they used some of their limited money to accentuate their disguises. Toph bought a headband; Sokka bought a small crest to affix to his new topknot; Katara bought a new necklace, a red one with light red gems. "I just feel more comfortable with something here," she admitted.

"Yo, you want anything Az- you?" Sokka asked.

Azula shook her head. "I'm fine." She gracefully twisted closer to the Water Tribe boy. "And you know that's not going to work. If you truly want me to remain undetected, I'll need a new name."

"Yeah, I know," Sokka replied.

"In fact, all of us might need new names. Your name doesn't exactly sound Fire Nation, and neither does your sister's. Toph might be able to pass off."

Sokka nodded. "Let's just get into town. We may not even need to say our names at all." Azula fixed her golden eyes on him skeptically. He narrowed his eyes. "And if we _do_, I'll _think_ of something." Blue eyes flickering with amusement, Sokka decided to beg for death by patting Azula on the shoulder. "Have some faith in me, girl."

Azula pulled away from his hand sharply. "Don't touch me, peasant." She started off into the city. Sokka followed close behind her, smirking; Aang, Toph, and Katara came along in train.

Passing through the streets on their way to the city square, Aang was a little nervous, but also excited. It had been more than a century now since he'd been in the Fire Nation. Back then, he and his friend Kuzon had crisscrossed the big islands that made up the country, searching for mystery and adventure. The people he'd met had been warm and friendly, and very proud of their native land. Though so much had changed, he still felt the same anticipation, the sense of excitement that Kuzon's company elicited in him. And the people they were passing now certainly looked as friendly as ever. Beaming, he raised a hand at a gentleman walking by. "Flameo, my good hotman!"

Katara looked at him, puzzled. "Aang, what are you doing?"

"Wishing these people a good day, in the traditional Fire Nation way," said the airbender. "Hotman," he nodded at another person. "Hotman," he greeted another.

Azula, walking ahead of him, had to suppress a wince every time the Avatar said 'hotman.' She'd never actually heard anyone _say_ it. She'd seen it written, in some of the children's books she had read- books that had been her grandfather's when _he_ was a child. She wondered if even elders they passed would comprehend the Avatar's behavior. Everyone he said 'hotman' to stopped and looked oddly at them, and the attention was making her nervous. Stopping to correct him would seem even more suspicious, however. She was surprised that the two Water Tribe siblings weren't attracting more scrutiny for their darker skin. Had they been passing through the capital, everyone would have noticed it; perhaps the lower classes were less sensitive to such things. Everyone's disguise seemed to be working, though, including hers.

Once they'd made it to the city square, it was close to lunch time, and Sokka, typically, was hungry. They decided to stop at a small grill, which did not sit well with Aang. "Guys… can't we find some place else?" said the Avatar. The smell of roasting animal flesh was already upsetting him.

"Come on, Aang," Sokka chided him. "Everyone eats meat here- even the meat." He nodded at a large hippopotocow, gnawing on a pile of raw meats just behind the grill.

Aang's stomach turned. "You guys go ahead," he said. "Maybe I can find some lettuce in the garbage or something."

"Suit yourself," Sokka said. He turned and headed into the eatery, followed by Toph, Azula, and Katara, who waved good-bye to Aang as she left him. The inside of the grill was dark, and the air was saturated with smoke. Loud conversations and sharp calls from customers to servers created a din that made their heads pound. There was a wooden sign at the front that said 'Please Seat Yourself,' but someone had crossed out the 'Please' with deep gashes in the wood. Stopping just outside the dining area, Sokka scanned the open space. It was very crowded. "Anybody see an empty table?"

"Why don't we just sit at the bar?" Toph asked.

"We are _not_ sitting at the bar," Azula growled.

"What's the matter, Bitchbender? Afraid you'll get booze down your front?"

"Yes, actually, because I'm _civilized_."

"Hey, guys," Katara said. She was standing back in the entrance, in front of what seemed to be a message board; it was filled with mess of papers and posters tacked onto it, reaching high up the wall. She pointed at an area directly in front of her. "You might want to come look at this."

Sokka, Toph, and Azula moved back to the entrance, to where Katara was standing, and glanced at the message board. Sokka and Azula didn't seen what she was indicating at first. Toph, of course, didn't see anything period. "What is it?" the blind girl asked.

"Uh, I- _oh_," Sokka muttered, eyes going wide. "Oh boy…" He leaned his head toward Azula. "See? I _told_ you you'd need a disguise!"

They had all (except for Toph) focused their gaze on a rather prominent piece of paper right in the middle of the message board, on top of numerous other notices so that everyone entering the grill would see it. It featured very accurate ink drawings of Azula: a close-up of her head, and a full body shot. Below these, in large, bold characters, was the salient message: _WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE_. And below that was listed a sum of money…

Sokka hashed out the number in his head, not that he needed to- all he needed to realize was that it was _big_. He inclined his head toward Azula again. "Hey, I don't know how much Fire Nation money is worth compared to Water Tribe or Earth Kingdom money, but is that…"

"That is quite a bit, yes," the former princess confirmed. "You could buy one of the island estates off the mainland with this, and still have a fortune to last your entire life." Under her veil, Azula's lips twisted into a smirk. "It's flattering, actually."

"To have a price on your head?" Katara asked.

"To have so large a price, yes," returned the firebender. "It means the Fire Lord knows the extent of the threat I pose to him. Just as well." She stretched her right arm up, and placed her long fingernails on the wanted poster. Her graceful eyebrows lowered; her golden eyes glistened in the darkened space. "I'll see him _suffer_ for this." Azula dragged her nails down the middle of the poster, and they left smoldering gashes in the paper. Thin trails of smoke curled up from the burning cuts. Azula then leaned towards Sokka, who recoiled from her. She scanned the dining floor beyond him. "I see an empty table. Come on," and she slid between Sokka and Toph to move forward.

Sokka looked again at the burnt slashes in the wanted poster. He caught Katara's eyes, and both siblings shared a glance, each thinking the same thing: whether it had really been wise to allow the Fire Nation princess into their company.

That evening, Sokka, Katara, Toph, and Azula were sitting around a fire in their cave, Appa resting on the ground just behind them. Katara was uneasy; she kept glancing toward the mouth of the cave, striving to see something only to be disappointed each time. "I think we should go look for him," she finally said.

"Katara, _relax_," Sokka said, sharpening his machete. "I'm sure Aang is fine. He's probably off talking to animals or meditating or something. You know him."

"But… it's getting dark outside," Katara murmured. "We haven't seen him since lunch."

"So why are you only worrying about him now?" Azula asked. Katara glowered at her.

"He's here," Toph announced flatly, not getting up from where she lay.

Indeed, in the next minute Aang came into the firelight. "Hey, guys!" he cried. His uniform was extremely wrinkled, covered in dust and blackened with what looked like scorch marks.

"Where have you been?" Katara asked.

"Oh, sorry I'm so late," the airbender said contritely. "We were playing Hide & Explode. I didn't realize how late it was getting until the sun went down."

"Who's 'we'?" Sokka asked.

"My friends from school and me."

"Oh, well that's _friends from __**what?!**_" Sokka yelped, scraping his machete with the whetstone and sending sparks off the blade.

"Um, from school," Aang murmured sheepishly. He pinched his dark jacket. "It turns out this is a school uniform. Some people caught me and thought I was skipping, so they took me to the school here- and it was great! And I'm going back tomorrow!"

"No you're not!" Azula snarled. "Did you actually put yourself into a school environment? What were you thinking? Do you know how many opportunities there are for you to lose your headband in that situation? And _then_ what- it would be all over!"

"She's right, Aang," said Sokka, sparing an eye to examine his scuffed machete blade. "If anybody in that school saw your arrow, you'd be captured- or at least the Fire Nation would know you're alive. We have to keep the element of surprise as long as we can. That means laying _low_." Azula nodded approvingly, though Sokka then shot her a glare.

"Come on, guys!" Aang pleaded. "I'm learning so much about the Fire Nation! Just today we got a picture of Fire Lord Ozai." Reaching into his jacket, the young airbender withdrew a rolled up portrait of the bearded, severe-faced Fire Lord. Then he reached into his jacket again. "And here's one that I made out of noodles!" he said as he took out another piece of paper, this one approximating Ozai's likeness in thin noodles stretched across the parchment. This one in particular he waved in Azula's direction. "What do you think? Good likeness?" The former princess did not respond, save to narrow her golden eyes. Unperturbed, Aang turned to Katara. "Katara, how about you?"

She sighed, hating that he'd looked to her expecting support. "Aang, Sokka and Azula have a point. You're putting yourself in danger of being discovered."

"He'd do that if he were walking down the damn street," remarked Toph. She raised an eyebrow, although she wasn't actually looking at Aang; he smiled nevertheless.

The young Avatar decided to switch tactics, appealing to another interest. "These kids are the future of the Fire Nation. Maybe if I could reach out to them- get them to _see_ differently…"

"They would still be children, and when they grew up, they'd be commoners." Azula would not be moved by the Avatar's humanitarian appeal. "A handful of voices against an overwhelming chorus. They couldn't make a difference."

Aang raised his eyebrows at her, a look of knowing on his face. "'The smallest of flames can begin a great blaze if it is fed appropriate tinder.'" When the firebender gave him a blank expression, Aang nodded. "That's an old Fire Nation proverb- never heard of it?" Azula continued to look blankly at him. "Oh, well, I guess that's not surprising. It's not the kind of thing they'd want people to think about these days."

Fingers tapping on his knee, Sokka tried to resist the urge to disagree with Azula simply because she was Azula. "Starting a revolution's fine and dandy, but you could do it without the risk of blowing your cover. It's just too dangerous."

"Well, okay," said Aang, but there was a glint in his eye. "It's too bad, though; tomorrow in geography class we were going to learn about the secret river."

Sokka perked up. "Oh?"

"Yeah," Aang answered. "It goes right under the Fire Nation capital. Could be pretty useful for the invasion…"

"I do like secret rivers," muttered Sokka, putting a hand on his chin. "All right, we can stay a few more days. Just be _careful_." Aang smiled and nodded. There was a pause, in which everyone waited for another objection to be levied, but surprisingly, none came. Even Azula remained silent, nodding her head in a weak affirmative.

The firebender was slightly more focused on the revelation that they were teaching about the secret river in public schools. What on earth was the point of it being **secret** if everyone was learning about it?! _Note to self,_ she thought, _upon taking the throne, fill the secret river with cobra eels._

So the next morning, the five of them made their way back into the city, where Aang bid his companions farewell as he headed up the path to the entrance of the school. After staying, at Sokka's insistence, to make sure that he wasn't ambushed on his way through the gate, they walked on to the center of the town, heading for the market in the main square. Lingering at the rear, Katara kept glancing back over her shoulder. "I hope he's okay."

"If he wasn't, I'm sure we'd find out pretty quick," her brother said. He took Katara by the arm and pulled her to the front, making her walk at his side. "Relax, Katara, there's nothing we can do now. Worrying's a waste. Let's just get to shopping."

"I want to go to the smithy!" said Toph.

"There's nothing we need there," Katara replied, falling back into her maternal comportment with relief. Today, Aang was fending for himself, but at least she could look after the others. "We have even less money than we normally do, so we've got to try and be careful with our spending. That means no _luxuries_," she shot a glare at Azula, "and as much living off the land as we can."

The firebender crossed her arms irately. "What happened to not becoming cave people?"

"There is a difference between being cave people and being hunter-gatherers," observed Sokka.

"Man, Sweetness, I don't want to _buy_ anything, geez," Toph snapped. "I just want to look. Come on, Sokka, don't you want to check out the swords and shit?"

"Uh," Sokka saw Katara look at him, "no, I think I'm good."

"We have some actual shopping to do," said the waterbender. "If we have time later, we can look around the rest of the market, though we shouldn't stay in town longer than we have to."

Grumbling, the earthbender put her chin on her chest, sulking as they reached the main market. Fruit stalls were lined up on either side of the avenue, and the smell of cut cheeses and freshly baked bread hung heavy in the air. Toph flicked her long black bangs to and fro over her face. An idea flashed through her mind, and she smiled. "How about you, Bitchbender? Want to see some sharp'n pointy shit?"

Azula arched an eyebrow in her direction. "Well… I… suppose I wouldn't be _averse_ to it-"

"Good," the blind girl quickly remarked. "So how about you guys," she meant Katara and Sokka, "do all the shopping, we'll go check out the smithy, and we can get back together in a bit, huh?"

Katara was immediately concerned. She didn't want to leave anyone alone with Azula; the former princess could not be trusted. Though Toph seemed to have formed a rapport with her, their tolerance for each other was still tenuous. It was easy to remember their fight on that abandoned island; Katara still had some bruises from it. Even if Azula wouldn't try to kill Toph, she would be the blind girl's only companion. What kind of guardian would Azula make, anyway? Which raised another point: Toph was too permissive. Azula would essentially be unsupervised. What would stop her from leading Fire Nation soldiers to the nearby school to arrest the boy with the headband? _The fact that she's wanted by the Fire Lord,_ Katara answered her own question. Some of her worrying didn't make sense- Azula would be blowing her own cover if she reported them to the authorities. For her own good, the firebender could at least be trusted to keep their secret.

In the middle of her intense thinking, Sokka shrugged. "Okay, sure."

"Great!" Toph exclaimed. "We'll meet back here for lunch in maybe an hour, okay?" She grabbed Azula by the wrist, and the earthbender dragged the firebender off down a nearby street toward rising smoke and the sound of hammers on metal.

"Do you think they'll be okay?" Katara asked.

Sokka shrugged. "I think they'd be 'okay' if they had to face down an army."

Meanwhile, Toph was in increasingly high spirits. "Sooo, smithy! Weapons, armor, blacksmith tools! Everything to tweak the up-and-coming metalbender's senses and sensibilities." She inclined her head backwards to her somewhat reluctant companion. "And it's all deadly, so you'll be right at home."

Azula made a face. "So is that the reason you're so fixated on the blacksmiths? Because you can bend the metal?"

"I guess that's part of it," the blind girl admitted. "But also, I just like weapons- I like combat. I'm good at fighting. I _know_ fighting. Fighting is the biggest thing I've ever done that _wasn't_ what my parents set me up to do." Toph smiled wistfully, thinking of her first awkward rounds in the Earth Rumble, and her climb to the top as the Blind Bandit. "I guess fighting is what helps me be myself."

Azula had to admit that Toph's case was not unlike her own, though she had not faced as much resistance to developing an identity distinct from the royal family. The degree to which she empathized with the earthbender surprised her; sudden bouts of attachment were not in her character. Everything was currently going well, however, and there was no immediate danger to face, so the former princess was in a deferential mood. "All right, we can go to the smithy, then."

"Unless there's somewhere else you can show me that's better," Toph responded.

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, Bitchbender! We're in the Fire Nation, you're a Fire Nation princess, you've gotta know some sights we can see."

Azula arched an eyebrow. "Do you honestly expect royalty to know the ins and outs of a town full of commoners?"

"I figure you must have been here at least once or twice," Toph explained. "Wouldn't your dad send you here on, like, royal inspections or something?"

"That's hardly the same thing as knowing my way around town," the firebender said. "Even if I _have_ been here before, which is a possibility, I'd hardly have stayed for the grand tour. The only place I'd actually know my way around is the provincial governor's mansion."

The two girls walked in silence for a few more minutes, but Toph's face was wearing an interesting expression. Inclining her head sideways towards Azula, she spoke. "You know your way around the governor's mansion?"

Azula nodded. "Yes, I'd at least have been given a tour of that. Besides, most of them have the same layout, regardless of which province they're in."

"A provincial governor would have a pretty nice chunk of coins stashed away, wouldn't he? Just in case there's a panic in local finances?"

"That's standard policy, so yes," Azula replied. Toph smiled. "What?" Azula asked.

Toph arched her eyebrows dangerously. Comprehension dawned on the former princess' face.

A while later, they were browsing some of the clothing and jewelry stalls. Toph slipped a pair of golden bracelets around her wrists, so big that they could have served as shackles if a chain had connected them. She clinked them together, satisfied by the sound they made. She held them up and turned sideways. "What do you think, Bitchbender? I mean, they feel okay… but…"

Azula glanced up from some shirts she was being shown. "They look fine. The color is quite nice."

"All right!" the earthbender exclaimed. She set some coins on the counter, and at confirmation from the merchant she left, wearing her new bracelets proudly.

Azula turned back to the old woman holding up shirts. "Yes, in that color… do you have anything of a lighter fabric?" The woman responded by holding up another shirt. Behind her veil, Azula smiled. "That will be fine." Azula paid without much fuss; to haggle over a mere piece of clothing would have been undignified. Besides, she wasn't hurting for money.

"There you are!" the voice called from her right. Turning her head, Azula saw Katara walking through the street toward her, carrying several sacks. Behind her, Sokka was holding some large yellow melons. "We've been looking all over for you two. Where have you been?"

"We just browsed the metalworking booths for a while," Azula said.

"Bitchbender wanted to get some kurai, but I talked her out of it," Toph added.

Azula forced herself to keep from scowling. "Yes, and since then, we've just been up and down these streets. We stopped here when I saw this booth. The clothes here seem to be of better make than elsewhere nearby. Then Toph saw… sensed those bracelets…"

"They're fucking _awesome_!" Toph chirped, clinking the heavy gold on her wrists together. "Check it, Snoozles, heavy duty!"

Sokka inspected the bracelets as best he could with his arms full. "Very nice. Looks like they could double as bending metal if we got into an emergency."

"Yeah, I thought of that," Toph said, smiling proudly.

"We don't have the money to be wasting on things like bracelets!" Katara protested.

"Relax," Azula said, her voice calm and soothing. Katara was struck by how placating the sound could be. "We got some very reasonable prices." The waterbender put up her guard; was the firebender trying to trick her? But Toph wasn't objecting…

Sokka shrugged. "Well, that's good enough for me. Hey, who's hungry? I'm hungry, let's get some lunch."

"I'm _starving_," Toph said, meeting Sokka by his side. The two headed off to where Sokka's impeccable nose had detected the scent of meat.

Katara stared at Azula, blue eyes meeting golden ones in a brief but intense confrontation. Then, Katara blinked, and decided to let the matter lie. There was nothing unusual about getting good prices at a stall, after all. "Come on," she said, heading off to rejoin Sokka and Toph. Azula followed as well, and the four of them entered the neighborhood crammed with restaurants and open-air booths filled with food.

They were eating at a noodle stand when a cadre of soldiers tramped by, running hard, their armor rattling. "Move aside! Move aside!" the leader shouted as he dashed past. "Move aside! The governor's mansion's been robbed!"

"Huh," Sokka remarked, glancing at them over his shoulder. He slurped up some noodles. "Sucks to be him."

Azula was very careful not to look at Toph.

As the afternoon wore into evening, Sokka, Toph, Azula, and Katara returned to their cave. Halfway there, they met Aang, who came toward them with a sullen look and informed them that he had been sent home for 'disruptive behavior,' and that he had been asked to return with his parents to meet with the headmaster of the school. With bulging, sickeningly adorable eyes, he begged some of them to pose as his parents so that he wouldn't have to blow his cover. After taking their turns berating him, the four other members of the party debated over who would don the disguises. Ultimately, it fell to Sokka and Katara; they were the oldest, and so could best pass themselves off as adults. A few makeshift disguises later, and they were headed back toward the town with Aang, leaving Azula and Toph alone with Appa and Momo.

"Ugh, this is _heavy_," Katara growled as she hauled herself back through the mouth of the cave sometime in the early evening. She had strapped a round basket around her midsection and covered it with her wrap, to give the impression that she was an expectant mother. Reaching to her back, she undid the cord pressing the basket into her abdomen, sending the wicker construction clattering to the dirty ground. "How do women do this for _nine months_?"

"Bah! Buck up, woman!" Sokka barked, his voice gruff and boisterous. He had bought a wig from the market and gutted it, constructing a beard from the hair, which he had affixed to his face. He set his shoulders far back and put his hands on his hips. "No wife of Wang Fire's is going to let a mere unborn child drag her down! Show some grit!" Katara whirled around and glowered at him. Her teeth were clenched with immense pressure, and she was also snarling like a feral wolfbat. Sokka squealed; it sounded very unmanly.

Aang dragged himself across the cave and plopped to the ground in front of the fire, across from Toph. "I'm glad that's over," he said.

"I hope you know not to do something like this again," Katara chastised him as she came to his side. "If you're going to go to a school, you shouldn't start a fight there."

"You started a _fight_, Twinkle Toes?" Toph exclaimed.

"I keep telling you, _I_ didn't _start_ it!" Aang protested, throwing up his arms. "That other guy did! He thought I was messing with his girlfriend or something."

"Well did you _win_?" Toph asked.

The airbender shrugged. "Sort of… more like I made him defeat himself. I outmaneuvered him. It's classic airbender tactics."

Azula's eyebrows flickered up. "So you just evaded?"

Aang nodded. "The monks always taught us to flee aggression, even in battle. And it's not just about nonviolence. If you deprive your opponent of a target, their attacks won't have anyone to hit but themselves."

"Hmm," the firebender murmured. The fire was starting to diminish; flicking her wrist, Azula sent it a burst of fresh flames.

"Anyway, I think we've had enough school for now, don't you?" Katara said. "We should just leave before our cover is blown, preferably tonight."

"But Katara, I was going to throw those kids a dance party!"

At this, all movement around the campfire came to a rather screeching halt. No one said anything, for the briefest of moments. Then, Katara, Sokka, and Azula all yelled the same thing: "**WHAT?!**"

Aang tried to maintain his confidence as three pairs of disbelieving, critical, or downright furious eyes bored into him. "Well… it's something I've noticed- none of the kids at school know how to dance! They don't have any idea that dancing used to be a celebrated part of Fire Nation culture. Dancing is actually discouraged in school!" he cried, eyes widening. "Discouraged! This from the land of the Molten Hot-Step, and the Dragon-Wing Waltz!"

"Wha?" Sokka mumbled. He looked sidelong at Azula.

"Don't ask me," she said. "I never learned to dance. It's unproductive, and doesn't sufficiently glorify the Fire Nation."

"Well, yeah, I kind of figured _you_ wouldn't know any Fire Nation dances," Aang said. "But I can't believe it's completely gone! So I wanted to show everyone in the school what they were missing out on. Maybe if they have a little opportunity to express themselves freely, they won't grow up so closed-minded to the other cultures."

"And where would we have this dance party?" Toph asked.

"Well… how about right here?" Aang said, glancing up to the ceiling of the cave. "This cave would be a perfect place; there's lots of room for dancing. We could bring in some lights, serve some refreshments-"

"Or we could fly away on Appa and forget we ever even _thought_ about something this risky," Sokka said curtly. "Aang, seriously, what were you thinking? We're supposed to be hiding out, not _throwing a party_! So forget it."

"Oh…" now the airbender was grinning sheepishly, which immediately raised Sokka's hackles.

"Whaaaaaat?"

"Well…" Aang rubbed the back of his head. "I sort of already told a bunch of people that I was going to have a party here tomorrow night."

Sokka glared at him. "Go to your room!" he yelled in his best Wang Fire voice.

Aang formed an air scooter beneath him and sped away. Sokka sneered as he left, then turned around toward the others, only to see Katara giving him a considerate look. She put on a small smile, and said, "You know, Sokka…"

"Oh no, don't _you_ start- you can't think this is a good idea!"

His sister shrugged. "It's just that… he's already been going to that school for two days, so why not leave on a high note?"

Sokka clapped his hands to his head. "I can't believe you're actually taking his side on this!" He whirled on Azula. "**You** think it's a dumb idea, right?" He was relieved to see the firebender nod. "And Toph, **you** think it's a dumb idea too, don't you?"

The earthbender made no move from where she sat. "I dunno, it could be fun."

"Agh!" Sokka yelped. "This is ridiculous! We are not having a dance party! Absolutely not! No way!"

At the dance party the next evening, Sokka sipped his punch bitterly. "What's the point of giving advice if no one listens to it?"

Toph was sitting on a rock next to him, her feet planted in the dirt. "Man, Twinkle Toes can really cut a rug!" Indeed, Aang had surprised all of them with his ability to dance. He had been demonstrating several dances for the multitude of students from the local school, and each one was executed with beautiful grace and speed. Though neither of them would ever have admitted it, both Sokka and Toph were slightly jealous.

"And hey, check out that girl he's with," Sokka observed, indicating the young female student that Aang was currently engaged in a dance with. He raised an eyebrow at Katara, who appeared to be sulking steadily lower as she watched the pair. "She's pretty cute, huh?"

Katara shrugged. "I guess, if you're into that sort of thing." At this point, Aang broke away from the other girl, and with his open palm he beckoned to Katara. The waterbender's heart began to pound furiously.

"I kind of wish I could dance," Toph said as Katara slowly made her way to the dance floor.

"What, like, with someone?" Sokka asked.

"Huh? N-no!" Toph stammered, feeling her cheeks grow hot. She turned around on her seat. "I didn't mean anything like that! I just… I was just saying, is all."

Sokka looked at the earthbender curiously. "Well… okay…"

"More punch, Snoozles!" Toph snapped, stretching her arm backwards and waggling the glass in her hand. Rolling his eyes, Sokka took her glass and refilled it.

In the depths of the cave, far from the music and the dancing, Azula lay on top of Appa, staring at the dark ceiling overhead. She had not been interested in participating in the 'dance party,' deriving no enjoyment from the activity. Besides, moving around too energetically might make her lose her veil and expose herself. So she looked up at the stalactites hanging down from the roof of the cave, her mind working as it always did, plotting sequences of events.

The Avatar's training was going well enough. He had some trouble grasping the complexities of the simultaneous arm and leg movements now that they had progressed beyond basic firebending, and he still had a tendency to give the flames he created too much freedom to move on their own. In all, however, he was doing quite well. His speed especially was impressive. Meanwhile, she knew there was a plan underway to invade the Fire Nation that involved the Avatar's Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe allies. She didn't know any of the details yet- the Water Tribe boy seemed to know the most of them, and he had never brought up the invasion when she was within earshot. Azula had a vague conception of the plan, though, thanks to what she had learned from the Earth King and his generals in Ba Sing Se. If she could learn just a little more, she thought, she could decide whether it was feasible, or whether she would have to come up with an alternate strategy. At the moment, she could do nothing, so she put it out of mind.

Assuming, then, that the strike against the Fire Nation was successful, whatever it might look like, and assuming that she had done her part to prepare the Avatar to battle the Fire Lord… it was time to start thinking about the endgame. If Aang could defeat her father, Azula would have her revenge, but that wasn't her only goal. Revenge was too small, too petty an end to waste so much effort on; it would be sweet, yes, but the former princess was only allowing herself to indulge in it because it went hand-in-hand with her grander ambition: the throne. She hadn't had time to consider it in the past few weeks as she had adjusted to her dramatically changed circumstances. With her new position stabilized, it was time to plan her ascent to the mantle of Fire Lord once more. The question of her right to it was settled easily enough. Her father would obviously be killed by the Avatar. Zuko, loyal idiot that he was, would defend their father against the invaders, which made him a perfectly legitimate target for lethal force- he was the enemy, after all. Perhaps she could also arrange for Iroh to die somehow, though that would be harder to manage because the Avatar had already seen her uncle demonstrate his lack of loyalty to the Fire Nation. The best thing for Iroh would probably be to rot in the capital prison until after the excitement had passed. He had already been disgraced, anyway, so there was no question about his ejection from the rite of succession. With her father and her brother dead, the crown would have to pass to her.

The complication, of course, was how to secure her position when all of her new associates would vehemently oppose such a thing. Convincing them otherwise was out of the question; though each one had different reasons, Sokka, Katara, Aang, and Toph were resolute in their desire to break the Fire Nation's march of progress. There was no hope of turning any of them to her side. _But I can turn them against each other,_ Azula thought. There was already tension between Toph and Katara, and it seemed to have been festering for much longer than Azula's brief time in the group. Suggesting to Toph that Aang's affection for her was more than friendly had inflamed it. _That will be it. If this party is to break, the animosity between Katara and Toph will be the shatterpoint. From there… Sokka draws closer to Katara, probably. Does Aang?_ The end result of such a sundering might merely be Toph all alone, which wasn't quite what she wanted. _But Toph wouldn't be alone._ Azula smiled nastily. _She'd have __**me**__._ Furthermore, Aang wouldn't forsake Toph, no matter how ugly a feud between her and Katara might get.

Sokka intruded abruptly into her scheming, and Azula realized she would have to account for him as well. As her enemy, he had only ever come across as a buffoon, crude and clumsy; having now studied him more closely, the intelligence he had displayed was unexpected. The Water Tribe boy was also observant, and knew how to keep his mouth shut when it was important. Of all of them, Sokka was probably the most likely to recognize her manipulations. _He must have a weakness, though. Everyone does. Perhaps it's his sister, or it might be pride. The former would be better._

"Ha!" she breathed huskily. The waterbender was pathetically easy to control. It was convenient that she had such a great depth of hatred for all things Fire Nation, especially if they threatened the makeshift family she had constructed. All Azula had to do was be herself, and Katara would struggle to keep her loathing in check. _Just how __**much**__ does she hate me, I wonder?_ Azula stifled a chuckle. _Enough that I can unhinge her with it?_ The idea of Katara going mad with hatred was almost irresistible-

There were suddenly footsteps in the cave around her. Rising to a sitting position, Azula looked back just in time to see Aang running towards Appa, passing by his legs beneath her. Sokka, Katara, and Toph were all shortly behind, scrambling up the sky bison's tail and into the saddle around her. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Party was crashed," Sokka said quickly, "we gotta go."

"Fucking _narcs_ is what's wrong," Toph growled. "That damn brat ruined it for everyone!"

"Appa, yip yip!" Aang cried from the bison's head. Appa trundled forward through the cave until, a short while later, he emerged onto the beach through the rear entrance that had worried them earlier; now, of course, they were glad to have an escape route. The stars and moon turned the sand silver. With a grunt, Appa pushed off with all six legs, and they were airborne, Aang wheeling them around to head further into the interior of the country.

It occurred to Azula that destabilizing this group could impair its coordination, and therefore its effectiveness in a fight. She would have to time each of her moves perfectly over the following weeks leading up to the invasion, to insure that her new allies functioned efficiently until she no longer needed them to. In the short term, she could work on positive development: Toph would be suffering the most from the breaking she currently envisioned, and if Azula built up sufficient trust with the earthbender she could win her as an ally, at least up to a point. Toph could even be her weapon against one of the others if she could arrange conditions appropriately. So before she had to worry about breaking the group apart, she could invest some effort in her rapport with the blind girl.

"Hey Bitchbender," the object of her thoughts called out, "you're pretty quiet."

"I didn't know I'd be required to say something," Azula countered.

"Is something wrong?" Sokka asked carefully. He stroked the beard still attached to his face. "Usually you'd be complaining about something by now."

"Ha," Azula muttered. "No, I'm just thinking." She lay back down in the saddle, now looking up at the stars in the night sky. She listened to the four of them talk amongst themselves, heard them fidget and shuffle around each other, saw them shift their posture and gesticulate as they spoke. She absorbed it all in her mind, and wove it into her designs.


	7. Warm Bodies

I've hopefully kept the time between the last update and this one a bit more tolerable. That should be the case for a while now. I'm going to be putting in some short chapters, snapshots of Aang & Company, hopefully in rapid succession. There should be two or three more after this one, and then I'll be putting up a bigger chapter. Think of these as shorts, similar to the 'tales' in "Tales of Ba Sing Se."

Here's the first of them, "Warm Bodies."

* * *

Aang swept his arms up together in close proximity, one closed fist almost pressing into the other arm's wrist. A blazing trail of flames followed closely in the wake of his fists, forming a gracefully curved arc that was drawn diagonally up his torso. It gave the impression of a flaming broadsword being raised to a block- or a flaming scimitar, if one preferred. When both hands were raised just above his head entirely on his right side, and his left fist was now really pushing into his right wrist, the young Avatar dropped his hands down to waist level, bending his knees as he did so, and taking an inward _breath_. Then he swapped his hands, so that now the right fist was being pressed into the left wrist. He straightened his knees partially, rising up, and drew both arms diagonally across the body toward his left shoulder. As he did, he allowed his fist and wrist to separate, and breathed _out_, and another arc of fire trailed behind the arms as they rose.

"Good," Azula said. "Now, faster."

The two of them were at the edge of a shallow lake, its water glistening light blue. The midday sun blazed overhead, and it was exceptionally hot on the sandy lakeshore. Aang had removed his shirt, and his body glistened with sweat. He did as his firebending master instructed, cycling left and right with the rising block he had recently learned.

"Faster," Azula said again. She was seated cross-legged on a rock nearby. She was wearing the shirt she had bought. It was a scarlet color; its long sleeves were thin and puffy, almost translucent. Meanwhile, it was cinched around the middle of her abdomen, just below her ribs, leaving her midriff bare. She had discarded her veil, just as Aang had abandoned his headband. "In real combat you'll need to move as fast as you can."

"What happened to 'control'?" Aang asked. "I thought that was the most important thing."

"It's the most _basic_ thing," Azula replied, cradling her chin in her right hand. "Without total control, firebending can't happen. When your goal is to defeat an opponent in a fight, however, _speed_ is a firebender's trump card." Azula inhaled and exhaled, feeling the sun's warmth in the air she breathed. "My instructors always stressed the importance of attacking as quickly as possible, and now that I've been out in the world, I understand why. The other forms of bending are slow. They're heavy, as I've said before. Waterbending and earthbending both require a firm stance and their strikes have a _heft_ to them. Wouldn't you agree?"

Aang continued to practice his block as he thought. "I guess," he admitted, "but that also makes them powerful. And you don't need to tell me about speed- airbending is even faster than firebending."

"Well, that power has to be built up, doesn't it?" Azula growled, annoyed at being corrected. "Firebenders can access the strength of their element with less effort than either a waterbender or an earthbender. And as to your second observation…" the former princess smiled sharply at him. "You are the only airbender I have ever encountered, so I confess I have not had much opportunity for comparison."

Aang glanced sidelong at her. Then he inclined his head her way. "Eh, okay, I guess that's fine."

"Faster," Azula commanded. "If airbending is as fast as you say, you ought to be used to moving swiftly. And with firebending's superior striking power, you will be able to devastate foes before they're capable of even preparing a defense."

Aang was now beginning to be a blur as he pushed his muscles to move at even greater speeds. The sequence of blocks ran together, the two flaming arcs merging into one fiery band that rushed noisily through the warm air. Sweat was now pouring off his body, and he blinked hard to get its sting out of his eyes. "Hey…" he gasped out, "can't… can we…"

"Faster!"

"But… I can't keep… this up!" he panted, shoulders slumping.

"Then _learn_," Azula snarled. "I did. You go until I tell you to stop."

Sputtering out a breath, Aang growled in his throat with frustration, but he did not stop.

At that moment, inexplicably, Azula felt a twinge of… not pity, really. She did not consider herself capable of pity. So what was this, that suddenly she felt drawn to the Avatar more closely? It was almost as though she could feel his strain make her own muscles ache. And for a wild, flying moment, before she reasserted the firmness of her intentions, she had the urge to let up on him. _Empathy,_ she realized. Azula had endured the same punishing drills the Avatar was now enduring at her command. She had learned these strikes, and then practiced them over and over, while her instructors constantly urged her to move faster, faster, faster. The former princess was grateful for it now; without that, she would not be as excellent a firebender as she was today. At the time, though, she had hated it. The Avatar was learning at an even faster pace, because he had much less time to spare. _Which is all the more reason for him to be driven harder,_ she concluded. It did little to change her recognition of the disgust on his face. _What does it matter whether he enjoys it?_ she berated herself. "That's enough for now, Aang," she said- and it startled her.

"Really?" Aang asked, pausing his hands and allowing the flames to wither. He turned to look at her curiously. "Are we done training?"

Azula was unable to speak for a moment. She was still rather surprised that she had shown any kind of clemency to her pupil. Her brain took a moment to turn itself over, unusually. "No!" she said sharply, in a tone that suggested it was simply foolish to even ask such a question, what was he thinking in asking that? "No… no, we are not done training," Azula spoke, rapidly trying to formulate a strategy, and as she did so, one came to her quite fortuitously. It was, in fact, something she'd been meaning to do for a long while now. Or not a long while, but she'd been meaning to do it. Through her freakish display of leniency, she had presented herself with an opportunity. "We are simply switching subjects," she explained. "There's something I've been meaning to do with you, and now is as good a time as any." Uncurling from her seat, Azula turned around and strode down the beach to the lake. Stopping at the shore, she glanced over her shoulder. "Avatar, come here."

Aang made his way over to her, wondering what was going on. Why had she let up on him? Azula had never shown any inclination to listen to his complaints in the past. And what could she possibly mean by 'switching subjects'? The only subject she had any impetus to teach was firebending. Unless…

"I want you to pay attention, Avatar… Aang," she switched, and as she did, her voice grew softer, and less harsh. "What I am about to demonstrate to you is one of the subtler elements of firebending. It is also essential for mastery." Her eyes squinted as she looked up toward the sun, then down at the shimmering surface of the lake. "There are two crucial…" she searched for the right word, "… aspects of fire that a bender is capable of manipulating. One of them is _force_- the physical power of flames to affect their environment by pressing up against it. You've already been learning about this just by learning to firebend. The other aspect is _heat_."

"You mean like how hot the flames are?" Aang asked.

"That's part of it," his firebending master affirmed. With a swirl of her wrist, a fire emerged in her right palm- and it was a regular fire, colored shifting orange and red. As Aang watched it, the red grew to prominence over the orange, and then the red grew steadily darker. For less than the blink of an eye, the flame was actually _purple_- and then, with a rustling shimmer, the fire turned dark blue. Aang's eyes widened and he continued to watch as the blue color got lighter and lighter, until it achieved the gleaming electric blue of Azula's regular firebending. She curled her fingers inward, and the flame vanished in a puff of smoke. He looked up at her, meeting her eyes. "Things burn when they get hot," Azula said. "As a firebender, you have control of the _heat_ that causes fire to form. Heat will emerge on its own when you create fire, of course- but it is also possible to control heat independently of fire. This is the key to advanced firebending. You can't learn anything beyond intermediate techniques if you don't have some control of _heat_."

"So you're going to teach me about heat now?" Aang asked.

"That's right," Azula said. Then she began to take off her shirt.

"Whoa!" the airbender exclaimed, jerking backwards as the firebender shed her upper garment, tossing it onto the rock where she'd been sitting. Azula lowered herself to the ground and pulled off her shoes as well. Aang was further surprised when she stood up and walked straight into the water.

Azula waded into the lake until the water was just below her knees. Aang saw that instead of wrapping her… chest… with cloth bindings like Katara, Azula wore a single dark gray band of fabric, with lacing at the back to tighten it. She turned toward him, and Aang also noticed that it did not cover up all of her cleavage. He winced at his brief moment of lascivious fascination. _Katara's prettier anyway,_ he told himself- and then he winced again. _That doesn't even matter right now! Stop thinking about which of them is prettier!_ But Aang had committed the fatal flaw of acknowledging that Katara and Azula _were_ pretty. So with one of them standing in the water, wearing only pants and a support garment for her bust, the young Avatar found himself struggling to focus.

"Avatar, take off your shoes and come here," Azula said.

He used her voice to clear his thoughts and return to the matter at hand. Pulling off his pointed Fire Nation shoes, Aang entered the lake. The water was cool, but it felt good on his feet after all the training he'd done earlier.

"You'll remember what I said about breathing being elemental to firebending," the former princess said.

"'Firebending comes from the breath,' yeah, I remember."

"Manipulating heat is also a matter of breath, but it is less explosive, and therefore less spontaneous. It requires even finer control… and a calmer mind." Azula folded her hands in front of her, one on top of the other. It was a pose of unusual tranquility, even for her. "So before we continue, Avatar, I want your assurance that your thoughts are clear. This is one time when your monkish upbringing should come in handy."

Aang grimaced at the stereotype in the observation. Like many stereotypes, though, this one had its truth: the monks of the air temples made detachment a way of life, and Aang had been taught from infancy to flush superfluous concerns from his mind. Pulling deep draughts of serenity from the well of calm in his spirit, Aang shed his fears, anxieties, joys, and distresses. A few moments of breathing later, the airbender nodded at his firebending master. "I'm ready."

"To control heat, the breath that fuels firebending must be directed inward. Instead of projecting it, you _insert_ it into your object of focus. The ideal place to begin is within your own body," Azula said. "Now, Avatar, I want you to breath as you would while firebending. Only this time, instead of letting the breath travel out, I want you to keep it inside. Press it inward… submerge it… let it flow through you." Her voice was growing softer, and Aang found it incredibly relaxing. He worried it might put him to sleep; it did serve to calm him even more than he already was. "I'll direct you. Now: breathe in…"

Aang breathed in.

"… breathe out."

Aang breathed out.

"Breathe in… breathe out. Breathe in… breathe out. Breathe in… breathe out."

He breathed on her count, feeling the warmth and power of the air building in his lungs.

"Good," she said. "Now: press your breath inward. Try to _spread_ the warmth, instead of allowing it to escape."

Continuing to breathe, Aang did as she instructed. He kept the warmth of the breathing inside himself, willing it to stay within the confines of his skin. As his breath sank inward, he felt himself growing warm. Heat blossomed in the pit of his stomach; the space between his shoulder blades became warm. He could feel the muscles in his arms growing warm beneath the skin. His body was a coal that glowed brighter the more it was blown on.

"And stop."

He opened his eyes. He didn't remember ever closing them.

"Not bad," Azula said. "You've got the gist of it down, at least. Now let's try an exercise." Steeling herself, Azula sat down in the lake, the water coming up to her bust. Aang looked at her, stunned. She met his gaze firmly. "Sit down, Avatar."

He did as he was told, and the water came up even higher for him. Aang shivered; it was cold! How could it be so cold if the sun had been warming it all day? Looking toward Azula, his questions were overwhelmed by surprise as she forced her body backwards, submerging it briefly in the water. When she rose back up, she was soaking wet, her damp hair darkened to pitch black; water dripped off the two tresses at the front, as well as her nose and chin. He just barely caught her shivering, but it had stopped just as he was noticing it.

Azula hated being cold. She hated being wet while she was cold. So she truly hated this. But she would never allow anyone to see just how much drenching herself with lake water unsettled her, least of all the Avatar. Clenching her jaw shut tightly, the former princess held her gaze steady on her pupil. "Now we will apply the inner heat control you just learned." She willed her teeth not to chatter as she spoke. "I want you to dunk yourself in the water, as I did. Then you will build the heat in your body with your breathing, and this time, I want you to focus on heating your back. Try and direct the warmth toward your spine and your shoulder blades. Your goal is to evaporate the water on your back- and to do it before the sun does. I will be performing the exercise as well, so you'll have a reference for the proper technique. Do you understand?"

"I think so," Aang said with a nod.

"Then soak yourself, Avatar," Azula said, "and begin." Her golden eyes slid closed.

Wincing, Aang threw himself backwards, closing his eyes as the water closed around his face. Shocked by the cold, he quickly pulled himself out, sputtering at the dripping water running down his face. It also drizzled down from his hair, making him shiver. The young Avatar clamped his hands hard onto his knees under the water and forced himself to focus. Closing his eyes, he began to breathe slowly, in and out, trying to ignore the rivulets of water still snaking down his face. He had to fight his discomfort at first, but soon he was breathing with a comfortable rhythm, and growing increasingly warm.

As the heat built within him, Aang tried to spread and compress it as Azula had told him. Focusing on his back, he tried to press the growing warmth away from his lungs and stomach, out of his arms and legs, and towards his back. He envisioned a gardening tool, a hoe or a rake, scraping the heat backwards. Assisted by the image, he continued to focus and breathe; gradually, his hands and feet began to cool. His arms, his legs, and soon his chest returned to a temperature slightly warmer than normal, minus the fact that he was sitting in a lake. Meanwhile, his back was growing considerably hotter, as though the sun were inches away from his skin. It was immensely warm, but it did not become painful, not really; he was heating himself without burning. The water dampening his back became decidedly less cool, and the feeling of it was overwhelmed by the sensation of warmth across his skin. He heard a faint succession of pops, following by a low gurgling noise that started and continued on; he was curious about the noises, but he forced himself to focus on his breathing. Then he thought he heard hissing, but at the moment it reached his ears it was canceled out by Azula's voice: "Very good, Avatar; you've grasped this exercise well."

"What makes you say that?" he asked.

"Because the same thing is happening to you that's happening to me, and I know _I'm_ doing it properly."

Aang opened his eyes, still trying to breathe properly, and glance to his right toward Azula. He was startled by what he saw: steam was rising up from the firebender's back, thick white tendrils that wrapped and curled themselves into the air. The small droplets of water still on her skin were sizzling and quivering; the heat of her skin was literally boiling it away. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that his own back was also emitting steam.

"Once all the water has evaporated, submerge yourself again and continue," Azula instructed.

Closing his eyes again, Aang resumed the focus on his breathing. He heard a splash next to him a few minutes later, which he knew was Azula getting more water to boil away. After a short while, the sizzling and hissing on his own back dimmed, until it stopped entirely; he dunked himself backwards without opening his eyes, the warmth of his body making the water much less unpleasant. There was a broad _whoosh_ as he rose up again, probably the lake around him releasing some vapor after contact with his hot skin. Firmly entrenched in his breathing, he paid no mind to the water on his face. All the tension in his body seemed to smooth out as he let the heat travel inside him. It was comforting, and surprisingly… gentle. "You know, this is really relaxing," he commented.

"Shhh…" Azula hushed him.

The Avatar was right, though; this exercise was incredibly relaxing. That was precisely why Azula did not perform it often. Building and shifting heat within the body tended to relax the muscles, and combined with the rhythm of the breathing required it also calmed the mind significantly. Her whole life, Azula had been taught to shun relaxation. To succeed, to triumph, to conquer, one needed to be alert at all possible times, totally aware of one's environment and sensitive to even the minutest of changes in a setting. Becoming calm was an invitation to be manipulated, because while you were relaxed, others were _not_, and they would prey on your slothfulness without hesitation. Rulers could never be lazy, because treachery lurked around every corner, poised to strike the unaware. So she had always believed.

Where she sat now, though, Azula could not help but feel that things were different; at least, her circumstances were unlike anything she had ever faced before. The company she kept at present did not seem to believe in treachery. They could consider it, of course, because that was simple human nature. They were not anticipating danger at every possible moment, though. There was a carelessness and a spontaneity to many of the things they said and did- the thought that these words or actions could be used against them seemed never to cross their minds. It was most pronounced in the Avatar, whose openness and honesty actually managed to exceed the estimations she formed of them when she hunted him. It went beyond what she would expect of a child, and even a child of the Air Nomads. Aang was _pure_. There were no shadows lurking in his soul that might be drawn out with the right seductions; what he was on the outside, he was on the inside. The contrast with Azula was striking, and she knew it. It amused her that he was so pure, even after all he had experienced. It also tempted her, full of shadows and darkness; the prospect of shattering the purity, of staining his unblemished spirit, was delicious.

But she was willing to admit, somewhere in her chest, that Aang's simplicity was… comforting. The presence of someone in her life from whom she would never have to fear betrayal was soothing, especially after her father had cast her out. As she was thinking, Azula knotted her brow in agitation. It was so _strange_. She did not trust people. She trusted the behavior of people- trusted that, if put in certain situations and made to experience certain emotions, people would behave in a certain way. She trusted in the predictability of human nature, and of the people she had closely analyzed and believed she understood fully: Zuko, Mai, Ty Lee, and Sokka, Katara, Toph, and Aang were now joining that number as well. She did not trust humans themselves. Princess Azula could not trust anyone, because they would use her trust to cripple her and harm her- precisely what she did to anyone who trusted her. Putting her faith in a person would mean giving them the power to destroy her.

_Aang would not do that._ It went against everything that she had been raised to think. Yet she could not deny it. She _knew_, beyond her capacity to dispute with herself, that Aang would not conspire against her. He could still plausibly turn against her, but Azula knew she would see that coming, and that if she somehow did not, he would announce it to her. The airbender could not, would not stab her in the back. She had to force herself to admit it, and then admit it again; it was so hard, because it was instinct to try and deny it. _I… cannot help… but trust him._ It was the only way to associate with Aang- to know him was to have faith in him.

Azula allowed herself to admit it, to take confidence in it- she could trust Aang. As she did, she could feel herself _loosening_. Tension that she had not even realized existed was relieved. Her breathing suddenly grew deeper and softer. She was able to fully partake in the meditative nature of the heat control exercise, and her mind was wrapped in softening, comforting tranquility. She was calm. _Calm_, she reflected. It felt a little strange.

"Aang!"

Katara's voice shattered the peace of the still afternoon air. Azula closed her eyes tighter, determined not to lose what she had recently attained. _I am calm,_ she told herself. _Calm… calm… calm…_

"A- Are you on **FIRE**?! **Aang! Azula!**"

_Calm… calm… calm…_

"**Hold on!**" Suddenly a torrent of cold water poured down from overhead.

_**CALM… CALM… CALM…**_


	8. Bar Brawl

So sorry to keep everyone waiting as long as I did. I got busy with a few other things. It was always a fear of mine that I would start this story and not be able to finish it. Never fear, though: _Object Lesson_ is back.

As a way of making amends for my long absence, I'll present three chapters in quick succession. None of them are the length of a typical chapter, but together they should make for a decent amount of reading. Enjoy the first of them here.

P.S. I recommend reading this chapter while listening to the track "Two Hornpipes (Tortuga)" from the soundtrack to _Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest_.

* * *

Sokka returned to the table, slamming down a ceramic mug filled with foaming red drink. "Firetip bourbon!" he said, a note of triumph in his voice. "I've heard about this stuff all around the world. The Earth Kingdom soldiers always try to confiscate it whenever they raid a Fire Nation camp. Even Bato says it's the one good thing the Fire Nation's done in 100 years!" Clutching the handle of the mug, he raised it to his lips.

Then the bourbon sloshed up entirely on its own and slapped his upper lip. "Ow!" he cried, pulling the mug away. He glared across the round table at Katara, whose hands were raised and open, palms facing out. "What was that for?"

"You're too young to be drinking!" his sister said.

"Says who?" Sokka argued. "Dad would let me!"

"Dad's not here, and even if he would let you, you shouldn't! It's not something someone your age should be doing."

"Oh, let him have it," Azula said, sipping her tea; she held the cup in one hand and raised her veil with the other. "The proper mores of youth aren't worth fussing over, the times being what they are."

"I don't believe we have to forget to act appropriately for our age," said the waterbender. "We already do entirely too much _cursing_" here she glared at Toph, "and I'm not about to let us develop a drinking problem, too."

"Katara, I'm not going to develop a drinking problem!" Sokka said, exasperated. "Geez, it's just one drink!"

"If the boy wants to try some liquor, he might as well do it now," Azula said. "There's no telling when he'll get another chance."

"Yeah!" Sokka said. Then he glanced at the firebender in surprise. "Are you seriously taking my side in this?"

"Why not? You're well within your right, as far as I'm concerned," she replied. She sipped her tea again. "Besides, as a non-bender, Sokka's odds of dying in battle before the end of the war are substantially higher than ours, so he should enjoy life to the fullest while he can."

The Water Tribe boy stared at her like she had melted his boomerang. Then his face screwed into a frustrated scowl. "Wow. Thanks for that _stirring_ vote of confidence."

Azula gave him a smirk from behind her veil. "I was just trying to help you maintain the proper perspective, Snoozles."

"Oh, well your efforts are thoroughly**when did I become **_**Snoozles**_** to **_**you?!**_"

Azula merely raised her delicate eyebrows. Aang and Katara suppressed snickers. Toph's forehead pressed into the table as she laughed.

Sokka turned a stony glare on Toph. "_Please_ tell me you two aren't going to start sharing bad habits."

Toph propped her chin up on her palm, loosing a few chuckles as she did. "Don't worry, Snoozles; I don't plan to start tossing lightning bolts around."

Sokka's mouth was thin as he stared down at the earthbender, bitterly aware that she was oblivious to his expression of contempt. He huffed indignantly and took up the mug of bourbon again.

Azula set her teacup down on the table, empty. "Hmmm," the former princess hummed, "I believe I would like some more tea." She slid the cup daintily across the wooden table toward Sokka.

This elicited a scowl from the Water Tribe boy, his bourbon nearly touching his lips. "And… what? I'm not going to…"

"I think I want some tea too, Snoozles," Toph said, shoving her own cup next to Azula's. "See if they have some of that apple tea, otherwise make it jasmine."

"Hey!"

"Oh, Sokka, could you get me some more water?" Katara chimed in, putting her glass in front of him.

Now Sokka was thoroughly irritated. He glowered at Aang on his right, eyes bulging. The airbender shrank back. "Uh, I'm… I'm good, don't worry."

Briefly, Sokka screwed up his will to resist. He was going to enjoy his bourbon, he was _not_ going to play serving maid for these girls, he was going to assert himself like a _man_.

"Please, Sokka?" his sister asked gently.

With painful deliberateness, Sokka set down his mug of firetip bourbon. Collecting the drink receptacles in his arms, he rose stiffly from his seat and trudged around the table. The pub had gotten fuller since they had been here, the din overhead growing louder and more raucous as dusk turned to dark. Wending between tables on his way to the bar, Sokka's eyes were fixed on the floor, jaw clenched and mouth mumbling unintelligible curses between his clenched teeth. When he was past the tables he stomped toward the bar at a faster pace, still grumbling at the indignity of it all- and suddenly he ran into someone, bouncing off a solid pack of muscle. "Hey!" he snapped, no patience left. "Walk in a straight line, jerk!"

"What?" A deep, gruff voice growled.

Dread overwhelming him, Sokka slowly lifted his head. Raising it all the way up, and tilting it back, he finally met the eyes of an enormous man glaring down at him. A scar ran from his right eyebrow to his jaw. The sleeveless red tunic he wore exposed his bulging biceps and did not adequately cover his heavily muscled torso. His upper lip curled as he _snarled_, his extremely bad breath washing over Sokka's face.

"You trying to push me around, bug?" he growled, taking a step forward.

The color drained out of Sokka's face. He scuttled backwards, trying to keep at least an arm's length away from the hulking man advancing on him. "Uh… uh… uh…" he stammered, nearly tripping over his own feet as he backed up. Then he collided with another body. The cups and glass he carried clattered to the floor, and he heard a distinct sloshing sound. _Oh, no._

Turning around, Sokka saw he'd run into another man almost as big as the first. This one had arms covered in colorful tattoos of demons and monsters. His forked black beard was dripping. He clutched the handle of an empty mug in one huge fist as its contents soaked his face and chest. The other fist was clenched, and as the tattooed man focused on Sokka it began to tremble. His beady eyes bulged, and the arm drew back. Yelping, the Water Tribe boy began to skip backwards as the man lunged.

The man Sokka had first run into had not stopped advancing, so Sokka only got a few steps back before he bounced off the thickly muscled stomach. He looked up, the first man was snarling down at him- he looked back, the tattooed man had lumbered within reach and was swinging his fist-

At the last second, Sokka dove to the side. The hook the tattooed man had aimed at him instead caught the first man across the chest, sending him stomping backward. The tattooed man loomed over him and reached down, but suddenly the first man stepped over Sokka's prone form and drove his knee into the tattooed man's gut. The tattooed man staggered back and crashed into a nearby table, causing four men to leap away angrily. One of them picked up his mug of ale and threw it at the first man, whose head it shattered against; the first man thus spun around and toppled onto another table, this one filled with soldiers. A man from the first collapsed table saw Sokka on the ground and leered at him. He picked up a wooden chair and hurled himself at the Water Tribe boy, roaring.

He was nearly on top of Sokka- when all of a sudden Toph came bounding across the tables from the left. She leapt from the last table straight for the man with the chair. "**BAR FIGHT!!**" she yelled just as she rammed her head into his gut, sending him doubling over.

The pub summarily burst into a sprawling melee. Several tables were overthrown as their occupants lunged at each others' throats. At the bar, patrons hurled their drinks in their neighbors' faces and swung their stools at each other. The bartender dove helplessly beneath the counter. "No bending!" he yelled, voice nearly lost in the din. "That's all I ask, no bending!"

"Whoa!" Aang yelped as a man hurtled for their table brandishing a table leg. The airbender bent back sharply to avoid one swing, a surreptitious swirl of wind keeping him from falling over as he turned his stance sideways. Stepping around the flailing man, Aang straightened as he circled until he could slip his feet inside the man's stance. When the man noticed he spun sharply around- as Aang's ankle crossed his, the man tripped backward and fell. Screaming from the left caught the airbender's attention. "Sokka!" he cried, dashing into the thick of the brawl.

Katara and Azula remained at the table, hunched low. Suddenly a glass flew out of nowhere and shattered against the tabletop. "Oh, I am not doing this," Azula snarled, ducking beneath the table. Katara followed.

Realizing she had something clutched in her hands, the waterbender looked down to see she was holding Sokka's firetip bourbon. She sat beside Azula for a few moments, listening to the crashes and roars of the fight. Without really meaning to, she raised the bourbon to her mouth and took a sip. Surprised, she lowered the mug… and slowly smacked her lips. "Hey," she muttered, "this stuff's not bad."

Aang finally found Sokka, screaming as he scrambled away from the man he had originally run into, whose head was now bleeding and whose furious expression made the young Avatar pause. Sliding between brawlers and dodging flying objects, Aang finally reached Sokka, though he was helped by Sokka's frenzied progress in his general direction. He reached the Water Tribe boy just as the first man swung at Sokka, barely missing; he bellowed in rage and threw another punch.

Making an imaginary sphere between his palms, Aang rose completely up, unbending his knees as he met the hurtling fist. He caught it in the sphere and tightened the sphere, trapping the fist and wrist between his palms, and he turned to the side and ducked, bending his knees and squatting as far as he could go. The man's energy continued out, but with Aang directing it, it opposed him, and having no forward motion it became vertical motion. As Aang went _down_, the man went _up_, feet yanked off the ground as he flew overhead… in a half-circle, which completed the circle begun when Aang had circled his palms. Up and down- yin and yang- so everything moved, beginning and ending just arbitrary points on the great circle. Also, the man slammed hard on the ground on his back, knocked out cold. "Are you okay?" Aang asked, putting his hands on his knees. Sokka nodded.

"Woohoo!" Toph's voice rang out nearby. She was riding a table down onto a dozen men, whooping and laughing as the whole pile collapsed beneath her. Vaulting clear, she skidded to a stop and brought her forearms up together in time to block a mug flying at her; it shattered on her arms without even cutting her. She turned on her heel, her horse stance strong, and shoved her forearms against the chest of a wild man leaping toward her. The blind girl was able to bump him back, then she gave him a two-fisted jab up beneath his ribcage, causing him to collapse with a groan of pain. "Come on, guys!" she called over her shoulder. "We're winning!"

The floor began to shudder, and with a great deal of dread, Aang and Sokka looked toward the stairs to the second level. The two dozen patrons still standing from the floor above were barreling down the staircase, and they appeared to be headed straight for them and Toph. "Oh," Aang whispered, his expression becoming distressed.

Toph slid to their side in a burst of dust. "Come on, Twinkle Toes, let's do this!" she nudged him in the ribs, grinning.

There was something about her manic enthusiasm that caused Aang to smirk, just a little. He sighed. "I guess they wouldn't stop for a talk… You ready Sokka?"

Sokka rose to his feet. "No." He grabbed a table leg nearby and hoisted it up.

"Come and get us, cocksuckers!!" Toph yelled.

"Toph!" Aang yelped.

"We're dead. I love you guys, always remember that!" Sokka screamed.

The horde was upon them. Aang vaulted atop the shoulders of one and dragged him down by his shirt collar. Toph rammed together the skulls of two of them. Sokka swung his table leg in every direction while flinching and mostly closing his eyes. Aang circled, Toph slid, Sokka dodged, Sokka hit, Toph punched, Aang tossed, brawler after brawler, beer and tea and water and bourbon flying through the air. At one point the whole melee collided with the bar and Toph leapt up onto it, Aang hurled empty plates, Sokka switched from a table leg to a tall wine bottle. Finally- "Yes!" Toph cried. The last man fell. "We won!"

*********

The cell door slammed shut, the guard walking away without further word. Sokka pressed the ice pack against the lump on his forehead, wincing at the sensation. He glanced to his right, where Toph sat next to him on the bench. "Y'know, Toph," he mumbled "when the soldiers show up looking for the ones who started the fight, it's not really a good idea to yell out that you've won."

"But we _did_, Snoozles!" the earthbender exclaimed, her sightless eyes wide even though one of them was blackened. "We beat 'em all back, just like we always do!" She pumped her fists in the air. "Another victory for the Blind Bandit and her crew! And besides, you were the one who started the fight."

"What? No way! All I did was run into that one- and he ran into _me_, so it was totally _his_ fault!"

"Can we just not talk about it?" Aang groaned. His left arm was in a sling. He raised his other arm and rubbed his hand over his eyes. "My head hurts…"

Sokka swished his tongue inside his mouth. "Ugh," he groaned. His tongue brushed over one of his molars… he went back over it again. "I think I have a loose tooth!" he squealed.

The door at the end of the hall suddenly creaked open. The guard walked back down the cell block, and stopped in front of theirs. "Visitors," he said, turning back and walking away. Soon after, Azula came down the rows of holding cells until she reached her traveling companions. Katara was leaning against the former princess, swaying from side to side, her eyes glazed over. "I hope you appreciate how much trouble this is," Azula hissed.

"Sorry," Aang muttered, looking down at the ground.

"You're lucky the soldiers at this garrison are so lax. If they'd conducted searches consistent with the official protocol for peacekeeping duties, they would have pulled off your headband and seen what's _under_ it, and then where would we be?" She narrowed her golden eyes. "On top of that, your bail is quite a bit of money. Perhaps more than we have…"

"What?!" Sokka cried, rising from his seat. "You can't just leave us here! You've got to do something! Steal the keys! Maybe you can kidnap the guard! Or there's this one idea I always had about breaking…" he stopped as watched Azula's shoulders tremble slightly. Behind her veil, he saw the dark shapes of her lips curl upwards.

Azula was snickering, and continued to do so for another minute. "You're very entertaining when you panic," she murmured. "Fortunately for the three of you, while your bail is a not inconsiderable sum, we do _have_ it, so I'll be able to get you all out. Now don't ever say I've never been helpful." She turned back towards the door.

Katara suddenly lurched upright and leaned sideways, throwing Azula off balance. Her hand snaked out and wandered sideways, first right, then left, and finally settled more or less straight pointing at Sokka, Toph, and Aang. "And let this _hic!_ be a l… a lil… a lil lesson _hic!_ for y'all…" She suddenly tipped forward, almost falling on her face, and Azula was barely able to catch her. "Nooooooothinggg good comes _hic!_ of drinkses and aaaalcoholll…" her tongue lolled out, and she abruptly snapped her back straight, throwing Azula backwards and almost into the wall. Planting her feet, Azula finally righted them, and dragged Katara down the hall, the waterbender twisting around to point back at her friends in the cell. She also gave Aang a sexy wink, which the airbender acknowledged by clutching his head again.


	9. Sokka's Master

Here's the second chapter of the set. It's also the second chapter in the story to contain events similar to an actual episode of _Avatar_.

* * *

They lit the night sky in streaks of blue-white, gleaming slashes of brilliant light that blazed across the darkened heavens, new arrivals from a cosmos beyond the scope of the imagination. The sky twinkled with a million stars, a stunning backdrop for the dance of meteors high above the heads of mortal men.

Azula was mildly impressed. Mildly. "You kept me up for this?" she asked, turning her head toward Aang. He was lying next to her on the rocky ridge where they were all spread out, gazing skyward to take in the heavenly show.

The airbender grinned at her. "Uh-huh, I love meteor showers!"

Sokka followed one across the entire horizon, a long smear of sparkling light that spanned the barriers of the night sky. "Kind of makes you realize how insignificant we are," he whispered. A whole swarm of meteors splashed across the night sky; he and Katara both gasped. They had only seen a few meteor showers before, and none as spectacular as this one.

Toph shrugged her shoulders. "Eh, I'm with Bitchbender. If you've seen nothing once, you've seen it a thousand times."

Just then, a distant whistle began to rise on the night air. It grew louder, and sharper, just as a point of light in the sky began to shine brighter. Their faces gleamed as a ball of blue flame appeared, growing bigger and bigger, the whistle now a roar.

"Trust me," Sokka rose to his feet, "you've _never_ not seen anything like this before!"

The meteor made the ground tremble as it thundered overhead, a long trail of blue fire burning through the sky. Sokka actually found himself crouching- it passed so close overhead! It sailed barely a hundred feet over Appa, resting at their camp, and then passed just above a band of hills on the horizon. Behind those, it crashed, shaking the earth. They stared at the smoke rising from the impact, a thick plume that only seemed to grow thicker. A light grew from the hilltops, orange and red: fire!

Aang vaulted down from the ridge. "Appa! Yip yip!"

Flying swiftly, the five of them crested the hills and saw the impact crater on the broad stretch of a riverbank, where an enormous blaze was spreading through the prairie below. The tall grass, excellent tinder, stretched westward- to a vale where white stone walls and darker rooftops could be seen. "The fire's going to destroy that town!" Katara exclaimed as they circled the inferno.

"Not if we can stop it!" Aang answered, clutching Appa's reigns tightly.

They landed swiftly near the fire, Aang and Toph vaulting off. Sokka dismounted, mace at the ready, while Azula dropped discretely to the ground. "There's a creek over here!" Katara exclaimed, sliding onto Appa's neck and taking the reigns. "I'll bend the water onto the fire!" She flicked the reigns and was airborne again.

Aang turned to Toph. "Toph, let's make a trench to keep the fire from coming any closer!" They rushed toward the towering flames.

"What should I do?" Sokka called out to them.

Turning around, Aang looked back, at a loss. Then Momo zoomed by overhead. He pointed at the swooping lemur. "Keep an eye on Momo!" And he was off toward the fire again.

Sokka threw up his hands as Momo circled back toward him. "So what, I'm just a lemur sitter?!" He noticed Azula from the corner of his eye, standing placidly to his left. He turned his head. Her hands lightly clutched the waistband of her pants, red nails dark in the night. Her golden eyes seemed to dart all across the sight before her, narrowed with calculation. Sokka raised an eyebrow. "Hey, how come you're not doing anything?" Azula raised an eyebrow in his direction, but did not reply. He shrugged, reaching up to pat Momo on the head- he had landed on Sokka's shoulders. "I guess that makes sense. I mean, firebenders start fires, but they're not so great at putting them out."

Scarcely had he said this when Azula dashed forward, running at full speed toward the blazing impact site. She leapt over the trench Toph and Aang had made, easily clearing it, and just as Katara finished her first pass with the water, the former princess leapt into the still formidable blaze.

Standing in the midst of flames three times her height, Azula paused for barely a second, her eyes drifting closed. She breathed in and out, took the hot air into her lungs, breathing in time with the fire. Cupping her hands in the air, she took her stance and gave the empty space a scrape, breathing in. The flames in front of her rushed forward, barreling towards her, but a double chop to the each side forced them to part around her. Sweat was streaking down from her hair. She dropped low, sweeping her left leg out to give her stance enough width to account for the great size of the blaze; then she gathered up her arms and tugged them left. The flames on her left suddenly hurtled backwards, curling around toward the right to match the curve of her arms. Shortening her stance back to normal width, she executed a final taming maneuver, drawing her arms in and to the right. The firestorm on her right hurtled backwards, curving as the other side did. Azula breathed in, then out, and the fire sighed in exactly the same rhythm. She'd taken control; the blaze was hers. Bending low, the firebender spread her arms out wide, like the wings of a soaring crane; the fire bulged out at its borders, its towering flames flattening. Azula slowly rose to stand upright, and as she did she gathered her arms together, lifting them higher as they drew closer to each other. The fire began to concentrate in front of her, the flames behind her lowering and dying as those in front of her grew taller, stronger, hotter. Her hands finally met above her head, and she took a deep breath; the flames heaved. Then she dropped her hands to her sides and thrust her elbows **back** just as she breathed hard **out** through her mouth-

With a trembling roar, the blaze shot toward her and around her in a huge _jet_ of flames that fired far, far behind her. It stretched back nearly the length of the entire prairie, for half an instant. Then the jet shrank, and the flames vanished completely. There was only the charred black earth of the impact crater, and a single, narrow column of thick black smoke near the center.

Aang, Toph and Sokka stood with open mouths before the cooling scene. Katara landed Appa nearby with her mouth similarly agog. The column of smoke suddenly started moving towards them. By the time Katara reached her three friends, the smoking object was close enough that its identity was clear: it was _Azula_, covered in black ash and giving off the plume of smoke so thick she might have been on fire herself. She reached the crater's edge and stood there, facing them, her expression obscured by the smoke.

Gradually, the smoke grew thinner, and it finally revealed Azula's face. It was… placid. Not smirking, not sneering, no triumphant expression to match her spectacular display of firebending prowess. Her golden eyes were half-lidded, and her red lips were set in a line. She had one hand on her hip, the other rested at her side. Abruptly, she closed her eyes and extended her hands in front of her. She chambered them at her sides with a sharp outward breath, and the ash blew itself from her body, leaving her reasonably clean, though still quite greasy and sweaty. Opening her eyes again, the former princess slid down from the rise the meteorite's impact had made, then walked lightly through the smoldering grass. She passed her companions, not sparing them a glance, and continued on in the direction of the creek.

When she had traveled out of earshot, Katara spared her a final glance, and shrugged haplessly. "Well… job well done, I guess."

"Okay," Toph muttered, not turning her head, "enough already. I get it. She's _damn good._ She doesn't have to keep rubbing it in, y'know?"

"Well I guess I'm glad she helped," Aang said, patting dust off his uniform. "Although I think we were doing pretty well ourselves."

"I could have bent enough water to put it out myself, if we'd really needed that," Katara observed.

"Eh, I could have just sunk the fire into the ground," Toph said, putting her hands behind her head.

"I suppose I could have blown it out," Aang said, "plus I could have done both of what you guys said."

"Pfft! Yeah right, Twinkle Toes," Toph snorted, punching him in the bicep. "You're not _that_ good yet."

As the three benders traded playful jibes, Sokka silently climbed into Appa's saddle, where he laid on his back and looked up at the skies. The meteor shower was still going on overhead, but it had lost much of its splendor. An old, familiar weight had settled into the pit of his stomach, one he thought had gone away but now sank through his insides as heavy as ever. It was the fear, the dread of uselessness. The truth was, Aang, Katara, and Toph could quite legitimately console themselves for not being the primary firestoppers, because they could each have played a role in putting the fire out with their bending abilities.

Sokka could not have done anything.

The next few days were uneventful for Azula. When her four companions had returned from lunch the following afternoon, Sokka had declared his intention to study with a 'master swordsman' named Piandao, who lived in the castle just outside of the town. Azula was decidedly unenthusiastic about this turn of events and had ultimately chosen to have no part in it. It was for her own safety: if this swordsman lived in a castle, and had the leisure time required for mastery of his art, then he was certainly one of the nobility, and as such would likely be able to recognize her even if she wore her veil. She had mostly stayed by the campfire, occasionally mediated, watched the sun pass overhead and reorganized her available information as it pertained to her ultimate goals. She had even refused the promptings of her friends to see Sokka's 'final test,' which was ridiculous considering how short a time he had been studying.

That night, Azula drifted awake to the sound of limbs swishing and steel shimmering through the air. Rising to a sitting position, she blinked the sleep from her eyes and glanced to her right, where the sound was coming from. Sokka was moving through the night, wearing only his trousers, his hair shifting around his chin as he maneuvered a beautiful sword in elegant lines through space. The weapon's blade was an unusually dark color, almost black, and the stars were like diamonds in its flat surface. Thrusting it out as he drew back his free arm for balance, Sokka happened to glance to his left and saw his unexpected audience. "Oh," he muttered, breaking form and straightening. "Sorry… I didn't mean to wake anyone."

Azula was surprised. He was never this courteous to her during the day. It compelled her to be polite in turn: "It's all right. I woke up on my own." He kept looking at her, and she sighed. She waved her hand toward him. "Go on, continue."

Sokka resumed his sword form, weaving the blade around him as he advanced and retreated, a flowing defense punctuated by precise thrusts and blocks. Azula was actually impressed: though he was certainly no master, Sokka had developed at least some skill with a blade.

As he continued to exercise, she noticed something, however, and wondered whether to keep it to herself. Finally, she rose to her feet, shivering slightly with only her support band covering her upper body. Free of its topknot, her long hair floated on the breeze. Sokka paused as she stepped in front of him. His eyebrows rose as she took a stance. "Here- there's something I want to point out. Come at me." She beckoned him with her palm.

Straightening, Sokka poised his feet in a forward stance, sword held close to his chest. He advanced, left arm dancing to the side for balance as he swung his sword up then down-

Sidestepping the first slash, Azula thrust up with her elbow and hit him at the base of his forearm, knocking the sword out of his hand. As the Water Tribe boy rubbed his arm tenderly, the former princess picked up the weapon. "You're letting your elbow drift too far away from your body," she explained, raising the sword; she took care to cock her elbow outward, just as she'd noticed Sokka doing. "It's not a good idea. You're just inviting your opponent to cut off your arm." She angled her elbow downward now, drawing it closer to her body. "When you bend your elbow, try to bend it downward, which brings it closer to your chest. It presents much less of a target." She twirled the sword around and presented the hilt to Sokka.

Taking back his sword, Sokka experimented with the placement of his arm, taking care to bend it more toward the ground. "I think I would have figured this out on my own," he said. When Azula scowled, he gave her a disarming smile. "But thanks. This is a better way to learn it, I guess."

Azula nodded, and walked back toward her sleeping bag. "I received some training in weapons when I was younger, so I know some basic principles. Zuko took to it better than I did, though." She slid her legs into the warm covers and pulled them over her slightly shivering body.

"Well, thanks again," Sokka said.

"Don't mention it- ever," Azula muttered, rolling over onto her side.

Shrugging, Sokka thrust his sword out in front of him. He resumed his exercises, careful to keep his elbow bent downward. Overhead, the stars were brilliant.

* * *

I've been kind of hard on Sokka. On my watch he's gotten into more than his fair share of bad situations, and he's had a few uncharacteristically bad ideas. So I thought it was only fair that he still be able to get his Space Sword. And since he never lost his machete in this version of the story, now he sort of has two swords. Not such a bad deal, I think.


	10. Daydream

Here is the third and final short chapter. The chapter that follows this will be of more normal length, so it won't be ready quite as quickly. But it's good to be back, folks.

* * *

_The prisoner was on his knees before the burning throne, heavy iron shackles binding his ankles and iron manacles chaining his arms behind his back. He wore coarse wool pants and a ragged, torn shirt. His hair was matted, his beard frayed. His eyes were fixed on the wooden floor._

_"Guards," came a voice from behind the curtain of flames, "leave us." The royal guard beneath the stage filed out of the throne room, leaving the prisoner alone before seat of the one who held his life in their hands._

_The gleaming blue fire rising up from the stage shrank down, exposing the canopied dais and its occupant. Her rich red robes were made of the finest silk. Her shoulders were trimmed in elegant gold epaulets. Her long brown hair was woven into an elaborate braid crested by a tall topknot, upon which was fixed her crown of golden flames framed by lines of red enamel. Her ruby red lips twisted in a sneer as her fierce golden eyes took full stock of the prisoner._

_"Ozai," said Fire Lord Azula, her voice swelling through the throne room's empty space, "you are charged with ordering the murder of a member of the royal family, and endangering the life and limb of the crown. Both crimes carry the penalty of death." The words were so sweet on her tongue. "Your royal blood grants you right to a single audience with the crown with which to sue for clemency. You may commence begging for your life at this time." Azula smiled wickedly. She gazed expectantly down at her father, wondering if his desire to live would be enough to overcome his pride, and how long he would wrestle before he started to plead._

_"I am very disappointed in you, Azula."_

_The walls of the throne room shook. The blue fire burning in the dais flared high up, flickering briefly to orange as it rolled like waves on the sea. Azula willed it to calm down, and after a few moments it drew back to its previous height. When she could see him again she glared down at Ozai. "What did you say?"_

_Ozai raised his head, and instead of looking pitiful he was smirking menacingly up at her. "I am __**very**__ disappointed in you, Azula."_

_The flames on the stage exploded into the air, red-orange torrents of fire shooting up almost to the ceiling. The throne room shook again, and it continued to tremble faintly around Azula as she rose to her feet, grabbing one of the dais' posts to steady herself. Fear raced up her spine._

_"Silence!" she yelled. "Guards! Take him away!" No one appeared. "Guards?!"_

_"I am __**very**__ disappointed in you, Azula."_

_The wall of fire surged all the way to the ceiling and spread rapidly across it. Azula's eyes bulged as a burning chunk of the ceiling broke off right above her. She leapt from the dais seconds before it was crushed._

_"I am __**VERY**__ disappointed in you, Azula."_

_"Shut up!" she screamed._

_The floor below the stage began to burn. Fire raced up the pillars in the room, melting the gold and sending hot marble smashing to the ground. Ozai continued to leer up at her from what seemed to be a lake of fire. He looked like a burning dragon, his long beard smoking as his golden eyes gleamed._

_Azula recoiled from his gaze, cringing as the flames from below rushed towards the stage. "No! No! I'm sorry!" she screeched. She tripped on her robes and curled helplessly into a ball. The fire crested the stage and raced towards her. "__**I'm sorry, father!**__"_

_"__**I am VERY disappointed in you, Azula!**__"_

"No!" Azula shot bolt upright, her nails scraping the leather of Appa's saddle. She was halfway to standing before she made herself stop, one leg extended and one knee bent. She stared numbly at saddle beneath her, her heart beating fast and hard.

"What now?" Sokka griped, glancing in her direction. "Did you need an extra pillow, prin- whoa," he stopped short as she looked across the saddle at him. Her eyes were wide, and wild. "Hey, what's up with you?" Katara and Toph turned their heads her way.

Azula forced herself to breathe normally. She slumped back against the lip of the saddle, clutching her brow painfully tight in her nails. When she looked up again, even Aang was looking back at her. She waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing," she said, her voice flat. "I'm fine." They still stared at her. "I'm _fine_!" she snapped.


End file.
